A Dhampir Story
by Soul of Ashes
Summary: Why does D return to the starting point of his early exile? The Refuge is a scenic farm on a pristine lake, a prison masquerading as a home for halfbred children. The lonely prince of dhampir blood harkens to his childhood in hallowed, forgotten halls.
1. Remember

**Author's Notes: **H'okay, so I got this story thingy that I wrote, omg D is so hawt and stuf so I tihnk I will post now ok, plz c&c. ...

Srsly. Another fanfic. This one is delving into the (highly contended-over) past of D, whether he grew up in luxury or was cast out by his father (cough)Alucard(cough) to live his life in solitude at a tenderer age. I hope this turns out okay. This chapter took me a long time because I haven't been writing and I needed to get back into the groove of things. EDIT: Sentence fragments and crappy structure, but that's all.

**Disclaimer:** Vampire Hunter D doesn't belong to me and I'm not writing this for profit!! He belongs to Hideyuki Kikuchi for writing and Yoshitaka Amano for drawing pretty pictures! Any and all places that sound familiar or names that are familiar are coincidental; Miranda, Mouka, and others, are all mine.

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**A Dhampir Story**

The days and nights had receded into memory, and the valley of storms disappeared behind them. The Frontier passed its cold, unquestionable judgment when it placed obstacles in the paths of unwary travelers. Juxtaposed, it could also be a gentle matron of kindness, sighing gentle sweet breezes, sunny days and no encounters with monsters or thrill-seeking men and women who thought nothing of slaughtering reckless travelers for their goods and the promises of the flesh. Here, the woods were lovely in white, swallowing sound and fracturing light, terrifying, withholding secrets no man alone should know. The tall trees wore their winter garb like nobles, frozen in dance and bending in the wind slowly as if nodding at each other in turn.

Miles into the forest, three riders hunkered down against a strong wind. Winter fell in on them, heavy as dirt on a coffin and colder still. Snowflies stung their faces and the subzero temperatures threatened to chase the life out of their steeds, but only one of the riders was bundled tightly against the chill. Not only that, but it was well beyond sunset and darkness was almost as lethal as the storm itself. The rider in front seemed cut out of the same black cloth of the infamous Nobility, unperturbed by the wicked elements threatening to unravel one of his traveling companions. This one stared directly into the wind, his eyes carved out of the high ice peaks far and away, permenantly frozen. The beautiful youth's dark hair whipped back and forth as the wind of the snowstorm moaned and sighed around the trio on horseback. Their tracks were covered again in mere minutes. Only the figure riding in the middle exhaled a cloud of vapor every few seconds. Their dogged progress was hampered by the wind, setting their pace to an agonizingly slow plod through heavy, wet snow.

The lead rider's scarf was tugged down long enough for him to turn and call out, "We're almost there."

A nearly uprooted post was leaning at the bend in a crossroad among young trees. It was nearly impossible to see for those behind the first rider, whose black cloak stood out sharply in the whirling white. The post stuck in the ground had snow clinging to the lettering. With a swipe of his hand, the leader rid the sign of snow and read the cryptic message: _Halfbreed Refuge; circa ------. _The date was obscured by time. He looked back again, then signalled for them to continue. Within a few yards, the trees disappeared and they were truly walking in an ocean of white and black. The bundled rider in the middle hurried closer so he could more carefully keep his supernatural companion in sight.

The fence was falling in one itself, broken in places, missing entire pieces in others, and then a smal building came into sight. A second hovered into view from the raging snow. He pushed open the broken fence, leading his horse to a well-preserved little barn. The paint was bleached off by time, the wood gray but solid as he heaved it open, shoving away piles of snow that had gathered through the cracks inside. As he wandered in, the smell of old hay and older death wafted from the forgotton stalls, forgotten tack hanging frozen as if waiting for an opportunity to be used. The skeleton of another horse was on its knees in a stall, not a scrap of flesh on its bleached white, ice-covered bones. Though it was decades deceased, the sight made the black rider's steed nervous. It was muffled inside, and the animal's apprehensive huffing was all that filled the silence. Soon the stomping of other hooves drowned out the breathing. The black-cloaked figure dismounted, pushing the horse into a free stall and taking off the saddle, removing the tack, and throwing a large blanket made of werewolf skin over the horse's body, neck and head, like a hood. A foodbag was quickly attached, soft words murmured.

"You've been here before?" said the heavily-draped man, shivering noticably beneath his layered wraps. He lowered himself out of his saddle and landed stiffly with a cry, catching himself on a thick pine trunk that attached to the floor shooting up through the roof.

"Yes." The answer was reluctant, almost introspective.

The third rider, a woman, led her horse inside, and followed the same ritual of settling in for the rest of the night. She had straight obsidian hair in a single neat braid that hung down behind her back, her full mouth youthful and almost red despite the cold. Her skin was a perfect white, unmarked by time, immortalized by the gift of the Nobility. She was a vampire, no doubt, and evenly matched for beauty with the male in black.

The creature in black tucked his scarf down, revealing his perfect mouth, set in a grim imperceptible line, illustrating . It was out of concern that his face took on such a bleak expression. The symmetry of his face was too perfect, as if something greater than man had spawned him. His wide-brimmed hat had never been blown from his head, and from underneath it fell a waterfall of chocolate brown hair, spilling forth around his shoulders, disappearing under his scarf. Spiked shoulder guards set on his shoulders, along with an assortment of buckles, belts, and zippers kept his whole ensemble together. Skin-tight material covered his muscular body from neck to legs, his torso's sculpted muscles gleaming in red fire light. This was the body of a dhampir, trained hard by decades, maybe even centuries, of difficult travels and lethal encounters.

The fire he gazed upon was spawned out of the power the human held over fire; such a mutant ability that was exceptionally rare and highly valuable in times such as this. Balancing the flame in one hand, he worked at unbundling himself with the other. He drew the fire close once he could to warm his body, letting heat spread from his hands over his arms, over the rest of his body. His lips moved silently, whispering undertones of soothing command.

"You should wait," he told him. "Until we get inside, you'd better keep those on."

"I'm fr-freezing," he complained. "I'm not native to climates like this. It's one last late winter storm, and I'm the last southerner who should be up here." The fire grew and he basked in it for awhile, crouching down and shoving off his boots to warm his layered socks. He was of a slight build and dark skin, with old scars on his cheeks and mouth, jagged ones extending even under his shirt collar. His head sported wild hair the color of wheat, his eyes a bright and guileless green.

The dhampir looked away, watching the vampiress with tenderness that was reserved for no one else but her. One would call such a gaze a tiny miracle, for no one had warranted such tenderness in many years - if at all. "Miranda, once his horse is settled, we must get inside. The sun rises soon."

"I can feel it," she agreed, trembling as she glanced warily to the door. Although it was still black as pitch, the snow had taken a strange brightness. The sun would rise in the matter of an hour, and when it did she had better put herself out of its reach.

The three crossed to the large house whose doubledoors were frozen shut. The dhampir drew a sword that shined bright silver. With a flash, it severed the ice, shattering it from the door with the clear ringing of steel. He rattled the doorknob once, then pushed open the heavy reinforced doors. The furniture was gone, except for a musty blanket on the floor by the hearth. The room was huge, with large stone columns disappearing into the ceiling. There was no wood at all to fill the fireplace. The room was full of melancholy and rife with strife, as if so many memories were buried here with none to remember them, none to mourn the passing of those who breathed the air.

The rusted brass placard on the fireplace read, "In Honor of the Quiet Mother Atoya, whose love we could not survive without, do we commend this House to the Protection and Sanctuary of all Half-bred Children."

"So tell me," Miranda said, moving to the hearth and stacking large hunks of pine from a shed outside onto it. "D, what about this place?" Midnight pupils quivered as they passed over the placard - twice, to make sure she was not reading wrong. "Have you been here before?"

"It was one step in a direction to help the orphans of half-blooded lineage." The dhampir's shadow fell long and impressively along the floor once the fire mage lit the cold, stubborn logs on fire. The blaze rose up as the wood slowly considered the feast, crawling along the bark and then settling into the meal, burning cheerfully. He looked toward the other end of the long, empty room toward a heavy iron door leading into the dormitories, classrooms, and playrooms. "It was a facility unlike many in the Frontier. It was less of a prison, like most humans desired for unwanted, potentially dangerous children, and more of a haven. In the spring, this place will flourish with flowers and grass, and the forest will beckon with sweet promises."

Miranda looked back at him, at the tall figure of him remaining quiet and unresponsive to her silent pleas. Mouka curled up in a blanket by his new fire, and beside him he let out his sleeping falcon. The female raptor rested against the floor by the fire as well, tucked into a bunched up shirt. He had long put her to sleep with a tiny injection of fluid so she could survive the travel through the weather. He stroked her head gently, her tongue moving inside her beak when she breathed in. She was a beautiful bird, with eyes like yellow flames. He had also the ability to speak to birds, from tasting of the highly potent and lethal dragon's blood that could burn the skin off a man.

But it was the dhampir that warranted the most attention. Months ago, they had traveled from a corner of the Fronter battered by storms, strung together by a chain of events stretching back less than a decade. There, the woman that had hated D with unforgiving passion had somehow come to love him. It was a strange turn of events for certain, but it was unfortunate that she had also become a vampire in that place. The dhampir who hunted his own kind and often slayed others who happened to stand in his way, as heartless as a stone and as silent as a coffin. None had gotten closer to his heart than Miranda. She would never betray his secret heart to anyone, not even under pain of final death.

Mouka had simply been there along for the ride - a mail business by commission and a traveling fire magician. It was impressive how he could take his two greatest gifts and turn them into a lucrative business that provided money for comfortable living. At the moment, he doubted that Miranda or D had letters that need be sent.

"You've lived here before."

The dhampir nodded. "Yes." He reached up slowly to remove his hat, revealing his pointed ears and extreme pallor.

"How long ago was that, then? I mean, how old can you possibly be? I know half-Nobility can live much longer than ordinary humans, but this place looks like it's at least a century old. You can't even see the dates on the sign or that placard anymore." Mouka twisted his body around to look at the quieted man, whose eyes wandered the forlorn emptiness of a childhood memory. What had gone on here?

Almost lethargic, he crossed the room until he left the circle of firelight to the iron doors at the end of the long room. It was almost thirty feet long. The stones echoed his footsteps so that Mouka could not see D but hear him as he walked.

D pressed his left palm against the door and pushed slightly. It did not budge an inch, but there was a crackling as old hinges fell apart from rust. Something on the other side of the portal clattered to the floor dully. The wane light of dawn was creeping in through the filthy windows. Miranda stood suddenly and bid Mouka goodnight, and hurried away through a wooden door to a cellar. The door was stubborn but closed gently after swinging the frame on its hinges a few times.

"Goodnight," he whispered as she left, turning to watch her.

While Mouka was stoking the fire more, D pushed the door open. The upper-most hinge snapped and it shifted dangerously. The dhampir grabbed onto the door and slid it along until it leaned against the inner wall of the next room. The dust fell from the doorway, and wafted up from beneath the wooden floorboards that replaced the stone from the dining hall. In relation to the other room, this one was much smaller and box-shaped. Broken bedframes were crammed into a corner. At one point, those frames had beds, sheets, and sleepers tucked away at night or day. Sunlight poured in through the broken windows. Small piles of snow gathered on the window sills and flower boxes outside. Beyond that, an ice-covered lake gleamed like a mirror in the rising sun.

The dorm felt like a tomb. The wooden chests meant for orphans belongings were missing, perhaps packed away in storage or stolen. The brightly colored walls were muted shades of grey and black. Shadows lurked in the corners, bereft of life as they were of warmth. The dhampir's eyes followed the path of windows, his shadow dim despite his solid form. That was the mark of a dhampir; his shadow disappeared entirely when he stood in between the windows.

He stood utterly still in front of a fifth window on the left. The curtains were stripped from the hangers above. The atmosphere, though no human could notice it now, changed imperceptibly as he stood there, as if death had taken him right at that very moment. The sunlight brightened, and the air felt warmer and cleaner. Dust motes floated around him, then slowed down.

"I knew you would take notice," the hunter spoke aloud.

The sunlight thrummed in response. From the doorway on the left wall, a figure stirred, floating forward. D did not turn to look just yet. The figure's legs faded just above the knees. But regardless of the apparent lack of lower appendages, the modest, curved form of a woman moved closer, crossing the room and raising her hand.

_How could I not? When my wayward little ones come down that road, I feel it. Why have you returned? _The woman's hand touched his bicep as though she was truly real. He showed no sign of seeing her or feeling her touch.

His voice floated from his lips, rising to the ceiling like a dream "I haven't forgotten this place, Mother Rhea."

_Nor should you. This is where your bed was; where you dreamed. _The lips of the woman curved up slightly. She had an old face, wrinkled, but beautiful and strangely compelling. _You still haven't answered me, Deron._

"That's not my name anymore." D turned slowly, the sound of that familiar name drawing his attention at last. "I only came here for one reason. I want to remember."

The ghostly woman named Rella retreated as he turned. When she saw his face, her ghostly visage softened. _You are handsome, no matter what you call yourself. I'm honored that you have come so far to this old place._

D's eyes seemed to glow with a deep, well-remembered warmth. He stood before this ghost, shrouded in death's black, and spoke softly. "It was once my home. The only home, besides the other one. I don't care to sound sentimental, but I've wanted to visit for years."

_Why? When you have so many terrible memories here. I always thought you were too quiet. You never spoke up, not once. Not even when they wanted to hurt you._

"I have a lot of good memories too. By the way, did... _he_ ever come back here?" The youthful face grew dark, stormy as a churning sea.

_He once came looking for you. But his presence scared the children away for good. When he couldn't find you, he wept and fell to the ground, raising a horrible noise. His howls even scared the monsters._

D nodded, although whether he truly cared about how that man felt after discovering his son had disappeared never became clear. Perhaps he really did not give one whit about it. After awhile he looked back at the place where he had slept. He could almost remember the color of his blanket, an unremarkable navy blue like the other childrens blankets. He could see his pillow, white and soft. When he closed his eyes, the dusty room became clean, sounds trickled through his memories like sand through a sieve. _Help me remember._ The sounds became clearer. There was a bell ringing, clear and bright, that marked 8:00 Morning.

_Help me remember. You know. The day I came; that wet spring morning in late April._


	2. The Unwanted Ones

**Author's Notes: ** I'd like to point out that at any given time, I can be stupid. Which means that Rella Rhea. The lady's name is Rhea. I'll change it when I get the chance. For now, I'd just like to wash my hands of being stupid for awhile; here's chapter 2. Comments? Critiques? C'mon, I KNOW you guys don't hate me. TT This story takes place after The Storm but really, it had no affiliation with it.

**A Dhampir Story**

**Chapter II**

It was wet and cold and miserable the day the Vampire King's son came to the Refuge. Though the sun came piercing through the clouds now and then, the rainbows thereby spawned gave no joy for the young dhampir. A small, black smudge of a figure slowly picked its way over ankle-deep puddles in the road that littered his path. The gender was as yet indiscernable, for the face was young and almost angelic, the mouth feminine but the youthful set of his jaw firm.

Children raced outside to the large, grassy front yard, dressed in ordinary clothes. In contrast, they had faces and eyes and features totally unlike those of ordinary humans. One human being, hardened by living on the Frontier, might find such a sight mildly unsettling and most offensive. Most of the children stayed inside out of the daylight, pressing their malformed faces against the glass. The flower boxes were chock full of a colorful, large blooms. In contrast, large men with guns and swords guarded the lethal, bio-electric fence that killed anyone who so much as brushed their clothing on it. It was a device designed to keep from coming in, as well as contain the creatures within; the giant, muscled men patrolled its perimeter every day, tirelessly.

Finally, the large double doors opened again, permitting a tall, youthful woman to step outside in mahogany khaki trousers and a white blouse with pearls buttoned at her throat. Draped about her shoulders was a heavy green rain coat. Her modest eyes and soft expression became darker as she observed the young person staggering along the road toward them. He tripped and fell more than twice; every time, he struggled back to his feet. The rain drenched his clothes to the skin. Water dripped from his hair, into his squinting eyes. His skin was as pale as that of any corpse laid six feet under, but he was quite beautiful in the eerie way that the blood relatives of vampires could be.

He looked up at the figures beyond the fence once he realized he could go no further. He sank down onto the ground and waited, his breath coming hard and desperate. The guards had taken notice and, alarmingly, raised their firearms at the small one. The woman called out a sharp, angry word.

"He's just a boy!"

"But he's one of the Nobility! Look at 'em! He can barely stand the touch of the sun!"

The woman marched toward the offender. Her fist made a solid, impressive crack against his jaw. He was even knocked to the ground. "I think you should remember who feeds and clothes you and gives you orders! Stand down!"

She turned back to the boy, ordering the gates open. The children did not budge an inch. Though they were many races and ages mixed together, rarely had any of them seen a real living dhampir. It seemed a spell had been cast over them, their eyes wide and gleaming, all keeping the wretched half-vampire within their sights.

The woman ran forward and bunched up the dhampir boy in her arms. A groan escaped him, his hands trying to grasp at the raincoat. His small, soft hands closed unsuccessfully on thin air. As she watched his consciousness slip into blissful oblivion, her voice rose above her reason and she cried out for the children to start digging in the dirt beneath the oak tree. When the task was undertaken, it was with oddly mixed emotions that the halfbred ones bent with shovels, making a child-sized grave for the unlikely newcomer. They were grim-faced, speaking in quiet voices, the guards keeping an eye over the proceedings.

The dirt was hard and cold from winter. The woman lowered the child into the small grave, and without even being asked, the children instinctively piled dirt over him. It was humbling; it felt far too much like burying a stranger, no one knowing what to say or where to begin. When he was covered to the neck with the softly churned earth, the woman who had brought him inside the Refuge told the children gently to go back inside.

"Mama Rhea," murmured the littlest who had remained behind. With a round, innocent face and eyes like fresh-grown grass, she must have been abandoned at a tiny age. She rarely spoke in the presence of her peers. She was a tiny thing with horns protruding from her chestnut hair which was tied in pig-tails. "Is he really dead?"

"No, my dear," she told her quickly, collecting her up in her soothing embrace. Rhea was still a young lady barely turned twenty, but never had children of her own. She stared at the stunning vision of the boy buried in dirt, his face showing stark white against the black earth. Death seemed to shy away from his cheeks, which slowly regained the color of youthful vigor. "No, he's not dead. He's just sleeping."

"Why he sleep in the dirt, mama?"

"Because he's a dhampir. The dhampir must pretend to be dead sometimes so nothing can harm them." The words themselves were enough to evoke a tremor that chilled her to the very marrow of her bones. Dhampirs were terrifying and mysterious. Most of them never lived through the torment of adolescence without being killed by their villages or slaughtered in the wild, lawless Frontier. He seemed born out of some terrible tragedy, out of a storybook.

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The following evening, an unremarkable black carriage rattled up the road, gleaming black steeds of thoroughbred lineage, their crimson oculars gleaming maliciously in the overcrowded gloom of the forest. When the floodlights swerved on the carriage, it had stopped and each animal stood perfectly still but for their heaving sides. A great, terrible darkness had come with this particular carriage, which had no markings to speak of, bar that it was purely black with dark, heavy curtains that were not drawn back at all. The crickets were still chirring in the late twilight air, and eyes like tiny red suns peered from an opening in the curtains.

Rhea crouched beside the boy, who had risen from his makeshift grave just before sunset. He was clean and silent, his hair combed back from his immaculate face. Such a somber look on a young boy did little to ease Rhea's discomfort.

"There's a man outside in a carriage. No... He's the Nobility and he demands to see that you are safe. Will you not come outside and show him? He says he's your father."

But the child would not be swayed. He looked away, his mouth set firmly and abstinently. He had not spoken a word since his arrival. When he spoke next, Rhea was riveted by the voice that somehow matched his body beautifully. "I don't want to see him. He told me to go away, so I did."

Rhea felt her skin prickle from the cold presence growing impatient outside, a power rising like nothing she had felt in her short life. She stood up after a moment, her smile like a hundred sunrises. "I'll go tell him. And if he doesn't like it, then he'll just have to deal with it, won't he?" Those brave words which might have been her last echoed in the dorm hall where the young boy sat. His baleful blue eyes watched as she walked through the heavy steel passage and outside. She stopped once to take a high-velocity rifle from one of the gentleman.

The night was fully enroached upon the peaceful Refuge. But the cold was immense. The very trees seemed to lean away from the carriage, making the very object seem larger and more menacing than when it arrived. The crickets had gone silent, and the crunch of frosty grass under boots seemed unreasonably louder than it should have. The carriage door had opened, and its lone occupant stepped out, making Rhea utterly freeze in her tracks. Her eyes were huge and engaging, like a deer caught in headlights. Or a woman in the unbreakable thrall of a vampire's gaze.

So were the rest of the men guarding this precious little-known sanctuary. Some of them could not so much as draw a single breath in the choking aura of the Noble standing beside the black carriage.

He was tall, strong of build, his shoulders broad. Wild black hair seemed to pile over one pulsing crimson eye. He wore purely black and one vermillion jacket that hung down to his calves. He looked much like most Nobility, pale skin, and fangs that seemed to line a mouth that perpetually smiled like a madman. The one visible red eye showing narrowed slowly, fixing on the lone figure of the woman. Still without the child at his side, his patience was dwindling rapidly judging from the way the frost enroached even closer, threatening to enclose even the building.

"The boy is fine," Rhea said, her tiny mortal voice sounding fragile. "But he refuses to come out. He says he left your damned home and left, just like you said. Now isn't that enough? Why do you have to come here and torment these poor orphans?"

The Noble stared. The origin of evil itself could not possibly have matched the smile growing like an infestation on his handsome face. "That sounds just like him." Then he fixed his horrible gaze on Rhea with scrutiny like superheated razor blades. "You speak very boldly for such a young little thing. You're barely out of adolescence and yet you mother these children like your very own."

Rhea tried not to show that she was trembling. Her expression was admirably brave. Not many could stand the presence or even speak words to a Nobility. But this man was no mere monster. He looked upon her coldly, before he strode forward. He became blurred, then spread out like a fog, sliding through the fence. Without so much as triggering a suspicious spark. Rhea cried out, scooting backward before raising the enormous rifle with strength belying her stature. She had barely raised it to eyelevel when a cold, white hand seized the barrel out of the growing blackness and bended it upward.

"You can't bear children," he murmured, enclosing his power around her and around the entire building. One of the gentleman who could not breathe fell to the ground, the lack of oxygen giving him no end of suffering. "Look at me. What is your name? Ah, you won't tell me. Then I'll tell you who I am." His mouth drew closer, teasing her pale throat with his lips, his teeth barely scratching the skin to break it. She was blinded, his hair tickling her skin, and her body responded though her mind screamed rebellion._ I shouldn't be doing this_, she thought desperately,_ I should be indoors, hiding, like a _sensible _woman_--

The last whisper chilled her to her soul, marking her for ill fortune forever. "I am Dracula, the Vampire King."

The wind tossed the leaves from the ground, and it was quiet. The only sound Rhea could remember afterward was the sound of running horses, the carriage speeding its way from the Refuge.

Shrouded in his own darkness, young D had wrapped himself tightly in the blanket of his new bed, shutting out the world. 

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Every six months, new guards came to the Refuge to take on work. The money paid was usually from anonymous philanthropists who cared just enough to send money to a good cause. Some of the children weren't born because they were wanted. Monsters often raped humans for the sheer pleasure they derived. The resulting births were usually fatal for both the newborn and the expecting mother. But the children that did survive usually had nowhere to go and no one who cared about them. The Refuge was a last-resort, a burning candlelight in the dreary monotony of being adopted by reluctant communities. This opportunity of second chances was a heartwarming story for people who just did not want to look at the tormenting, ugly faces of children nobody else wanted. Money poured in steadily; Rhea and her grandmother Saya did not necessarily mind who donated, so long as she had enough to order the crates of food required to nourish her young, broken charges.

Some of the money also went toward the protection of her facility. That meant ensuring that her guards were well-paid, well-armed, and kind enough to be sympathetic toward the children. Some of the guards even acted as surrogate fathers to the youngsters, playing with them on their breaks and on days they could rest.

The next morning, the guards and Rhea were well-recovered to follow through with their duties. Rhea joined the twenty youngsters at their tables for breakfast. It was a gorgeous morning at a balmy sixty-five degrees celcius. Children's memories were short, so none of them seemed to take much negative notice of their unnatural guest, making their number an uneven twenty-one. He wore too-large pants that were folded up at his feet and a snug longsleeve shirt of soft, rare cotton. He would soon be able to have his own clothes and a chest filled with whatever belongings he accumulated.

Rhea watched the little girl with horns slide out of her seat, disappearing behind the others as she circuited about her table and approached the dark figure who alienated himself at the end, leaving as much space between himself and the others as possible. She carried her plate with her, balancing her glass on an empty space, but when she tried to slide herself in between chair and table the cup toppled, splashing red cranberry juice onto the dhampir's napkin, red slowly creeping along the white cloth too much like spilled blood.

"Ah! I'm sorry!!" She grabbed a handful from the pile near the end of the table, soaking up the cranberry juice, squishing the napkins down hard onto the table.

If anything, the dhampir's expression betrayed a fleeting glimpse of perplexed amusement. He put his hands over hers. "It's okay, really."

She blushed furiously, her eyes wide, their alarming clarity almost matching that of the young boy's. "I'm Eili."

He fidgeted slightly, scooting his chair to give her more room. "I'm--" His nose scrunched up slightly, then resumed softly, "D."

"Mama says you're a dhampir."

This made him look away. Emotions flashed in his eyes, so he hid them. "I am."

"Is it true that dhampirs pretend to be dead so nobody hurts 'em?" Eili looked perplexed, moving her hands from underneath his, gathering up the dirtied napkins and placing them on her empty plate.

Deron looked at her then, chillingly void of emotion. "I... I don't know." Her small face, full of innocence, made him think twice about telling her to leave him alone. He looked back at his food and scooped some of the stew into his mouth, chewing and swallowing. "Who were your parents?"

"I dunno," she murmured. "Rhea's my mommy now. She's your mommy too."

D looked a little less perplexed, and almost-smiled with unprecedented kindness. "I guess so."

"My horns came in last year." Her eyes shined with irrepressible joy, bubbling out of control as with so many children Eili's age. "Rhea said they weren't supposed until this year but they did! They grew in last year and they won't get much bigger but Rhea says they're pretty." Blushing, she ducked her head, as if ashamed to have said so much in the company of a stranger. She touched her small, pointed horns which gently curved in toward the centerline of her skull.

"Well, I like them."

Eili blushed even more. "O-Oh, th-thank you."

Rhea looked from her cup of coffee, a tiny smile forming on her lips. Eili's innocent questions and observations often dispelled any pall on one's black mood. That was a strange power of hers that had nothing to do with her half-demon race. She tucked back her chestnut hair and smiled to herself. The other children had noticed the spill but now they were talking and chattering excitedly because yesterday, not only had they seen a dhampir, but it was rumored that a Noble had come last night, supposedly the very one who was their new friend's father!

"Hey, you!" A dark-skinned, serpentine-tongued boy hissed. "What'sss your name?"

"D." The boy looked up, his stunning eyes capturing the lizard green ones of the slightly older adolescent.

"Well, I'm Vice. Why don't you come outside later and play with uss?" His grin was full of sharp white teeth. D was not sure if he should trust it. He nodded eventually after gazing at Eili, who seemed as willing to have him join them as one of their own. He nodded, allowing himself to smile just a little bit. This place had seemed like a nightmare, a prison; maybe it wasn't so bad.

But it was soon to be discovered that playing was not the thing on the other children's minds.


	3. Targetted

**Author's Notes: **A word of advice for everyone involved: don't ever, EVER try to write on your brand new laptop from Christmas at 4 in the morning. EVER. It's HORRID. I can't stand myself. This chapter has been edited for stupidity that occurs when only one-quarter of your brain is functioning. I hope this improves the quality of your experience. I injected some light-heartedness to make the angst levels decrease.

**A Dhampir Story  
Chapter III**

The daylight made everything as sharp as whetted knives, each green blade of grass a study in clairvoyant perfection. Contrasting colors, jagged points of light through branches as yet too bare to provide shade. The oak tree was still ugly, but the tiny promising bulbs on its branch tips were bright, bright green. Eili's tiny hand was clasped by D's, but it was she who led him outside into the daylight. He paused in the doorway, blinking against the sun before her energetic steps guided him underneath the oak tree where the hole he had slept in had been filled in. It was still a black stain amongst fresh tender shoots.

D closed his eyes and felt her tiny hands in his hair, her laughter like bells. He saw Rhea leave through the doorway after them, a heavy sidearm holstered at her hip, peridot blue fabric and sewing box in her arms. The sun gave her golden halos above her head. He could smell the fragrant flowers in their boxes, the perfume she wore, and the cloying aroma of freshly churned earth beneath him.

"Watch me, D! Watch me!"

Laughter. Like silver bells. Golden halo, blades of grass, and flowers trembling in fear at the wind.

Soft pink hands in the dirt now, digging.

"D, you gotta pretend you're dead so the trolls don't eat you!"

* * *

"D?"

The dust had settled again. It was darker now, the sun was low and on the other side of the hemisphere - it was midafternoon. A shadow had closed over the room. Mouka picked out the shadow of the dhampir on the floor laying on his back with his hat tucked firmly over his eyes.

He stepped a little closer, tipping his head to one side.

"What is it?" Soft, clipped words. Mouka had barely seen his perfect mouth in motion.

Damn, was he sleeping? Why am I so concerned about it? He's the infamous Vampire Hunter. He gathered his courage, moistening his mouth slightly. "I, uh, I thought something was wrong so I came to check on you."

"I'm fine." He sat up slowly, left hand gliding surriptiously to the sheathed longsword by his side.

"Why were you laying on the floor like that?"

D's mouth stiffened. There was something D knew but never wanted to tell right then; Mouka felt some pride at being able to tell that much. "Just tired."

Mouka leaned against the wall with his back, arms crossed over his chest. He was underdressed, but he commanded enough of his own body heat to keep him comfortable. His hair was combed back and slightly damp. But inside his mind, he was deeply concerned. D had become very withdrawn over a short period of time, even turning down offers of affection from his vampiric lady. Why he was not down there in the cellar with her, watching over her as he had done obsessively the first weeks of their journey, was a difficult mystery to crack. He had gone silent, refusing to say where they were going at all. Mouka had put enough stock in the vampire hunter's skills to figure that maybe he was leading them on a hunt, that he'd picked up a scent. Something to make sense of his extremely bizarre behavior.

But he had only led them to this place. Cold and abandoned and falling apart at the seams. Mouka was understandably creeped out. "Something's come over you, D, and, I dunno, maybe you wanna... talk about it?"

"I already told you I used to live here. When I was very young."

"Ohh. You didn't say anything about being a kid. After all, you never answered my question about how long ago all this was. So..." Mouka slowly sat down on the floor with his legs crossed, trying to exercise a little patience. It took awhile to coax information out of people who were deep and introspective and stuff like that. People like D. "...what happened?"

"I was banished from my father's house when I was just a young boy." The hunter leaned his back to the wall, his legs extended out, the sword tipped up against his shoulder. "I walked fifty-six miles through the wilderness to this place. He'd been merciful enough to point the way. 'Walk until you find the road, and then head west along it'."

D paused. Mouka leaned forward slightly, watched him intently. He had never heard a word of his father, his highly contended past, or any precious scraps of the man's life at all. He still knew only as much about his past as the stories he often recited between performances. Which meant basically nothing at all.

When the dhampir was ready to continue, he exhaled slowly, tipping back his head. "I haven't been here in seven hundred years."

Mouka swallowed heavily. _Holy Gods, is that ever old! I've never even heard of a Noble who lived that long! He's got to be older than seven centuries for sure! _"Why'd you come back here then?"

"I want to remember." The unmoving statue looked at Mouka, but his unbearable gaze seemed to pass directly through him.

The firemancer squirmed, his skin prickling as though ice were dripping over him. "Remember...what?"

"A promise."

* * *

The boys had come outside. Eili looked up, not even realizing her eyes had gotten huge at the sight of the predatory gait the boys had adopted as they approached them. Vice was in the front. His skin was slightly scaled along his neck, which continued down under his shirt collar. He had no hair to speak of but for the markings on his skin; the offspring of the snake women and a man, abandoned and forgotten by the fickle and promiscuous ladies.

The horned girl's eyes darkened and she slid back, behind D, watching. Waiting.

They stopped under the oak tree beside them. D was sitting down in the shade of the trunk, hair like the sable ink of the Eastern Frontier hiding the pooled blue in his eyes. His legs were tucked up to his chest, but he was starting to unfold himself a little more. Four stocky halfbred boys trooped along with Vice, who smiled like a viper, all teeth and no charisma.

"Play with us," Vice said. "Or at the very least, play with me. Are you afraid, sucker?"

The four bruisers made sucking noises, baring their teeth and hissing. Fear was not in their hearts. Not for a small, scrawny dark-haired boy with a little girl clinging to his sleeve.

"No."

"No, you aren't afraid? Or no, I don't wanna play?"

"I don't want to play." D's lips barely moved. He looked upon them as one would scrutinize the brutality of beasts - with a grimace.

"I see. Guess the sucker's too good for our games." Vice's expression contorted into one of malicious intent. His voice was sibillant, much of his speech lost in his S's, but his young, ordinary voice was poisoned with hatred. "You know... I saw a half-sucker once. He was just as pathetic and little as you. He was turned out on his ass and they stoned him to death in the noonday sun. He cried like a baby. Then they cut off his head. Do you know what they did next?"

D said nothing.

"Why, they dumped the sunnuvabitch in a hole and filled it with garlic and lit him on fire!" Vice grinned, ear to ear, like a maniacal eight-ball. "And that's just for walking into town. But we're gonna give you a chance, sucker, to prove that you're not stupid enough to try and fit in. Eili might be stupid to take you on as one of us, but you're much worse than any other half-breed. You just sit your ass down in the shade every day and leave well enough alone and nobody'll be the wiser."

Still, the news seemed to fly right over the unconcerned dhampir's had. He said nothing at all now, but his jaw had grown taut. He had bent his head down to hide his eyes.

"All you got to do is play with us. Play by our rules and show us a good time, sucker. There's enough of ya to go around." A slightly lascivious gleam filled his eyes, his hands (covered in scales on the tops, the color of rusted brass) dropping to his belt.

"I said no."

A gripping cold settled over the gathering. That voice alone, young and clear, severed the hormone-heightened bravado the boys had garnished from plotting. Vice said nothing for a moment, his skin prickling with something he didn't like. "Then we'll just have to stone ya."

"Hey, come on, Vice, let's just leave him alone. He ain't botherin' no body."

"He's bothering me!" the snake boy hissed. "His face... pisses me off!"

He seized a rock from his pocket and cocked his arm back to smash it over D's head. The dhampir flinched and Eili clung all the tighter, but that was all; a larger hand appeared out of nowhere, gripped the boy's arm like a noose, and in a heartbeat Vice was hanging upside down from his ankle, arms windmilling violently to get down or stay aloft or whatever it was he thought he could accomplish by doing so. He squawked like a poorly played trumpet, his face turning an unflattering shade of pink.

"Hey, put me down!"

The owner of the intruding limb was a man. He seemed huge but it might have been because everyone was either cowering or sitting down. The man wore the badge of a Refuge guard; he wore a patch over one eye, attractive face puckered with other scars and imperfections. He could have otherwise been handsome. His weapon of choice was a long, slightly curved broadsword of Eastern origin. He wore the usual Frontier clothes - a pair of jeans and an open-collar shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"The same antics again, Vice. Inside. Rhea will decide your punishment." His words had a taste of the East in them as well. His eye narrowed, and it was such a color of brown that it was almost red. He dropped the boy and watched him scramble away like a pup with his tail tucked between his legs.

When Vice was apprehended by Rhea, he cast a scathing look over his shoulder. His band of bruisers nowhere to be found.

Eili gazed up in abject awe of the savior who had spared her new friend from certain harm. D lifted his eyes to the man as well. His face was wet with tears; he had cried silently and quickly, but his somber eyes were lit up with great astonishment for the sudden appearance of a protagonist.

The hero smiled crookedly. Nerve damage had rendered one side of his face slightly numb. "You are very wise not to fight here. If it had gone badly, you and Vice would have found yourselves at odds in one of the punishment cells. Time-outs are for hours."

D nodded, uncomprehending at first. Eili put her arms around one of his. "Who are you?"

"My name is Zhou. Vice - he mentioned you are dhampir?"

Again, the boy nodded, but he sighed and looked down.

"Oh, don't be alarmed. I met a dhampir once." A change overcame his face, only a little, as if he had remembered a distant, uncomfortable memory. It could only be described as melancholy. "I have nothing against you at all."

The boy was dumbfounded and fascinated. His eyes were drawn again and again to the sword on his back. Zhou's words had captured something inside the young boy's almost-frozen heart. His imagination was sparked and he could only harken back to the books he had read about the Eastern countries, their rumored martial arts, and the styles of fighting they had perfected over centuries.

D wanted to know how to fight like that. But he had no hope that this man would teach him. He looked away. He told him his name, his real one, softly, so that no one else could hear but the warrior and the girl.

Zhou smiled. "Ah. It is good that we have met, 'Chosen by God'. If you have troubles again with the high-spirited boys, do not hesitate to come to me." He turned, sliding one hand into his pocket, waving the other over his shoulder. Then he stopped again, asking, "Who is your father, if you don't mind my asking?"

The dark child said nothing at all, stupefied, but not willingly open about the subject of his father - a topic with which everyone seemed obsessed.

"I apologize. It was not my place. It's just that I cannot help but find you very familiar. Ah. Well, good day." The man's cheerful disposition banished the veil of fear that had been cast over them. The episode with Vice all but forgotten, the children watched the other man depart toward the fence toward Rhea, speaking with her quietly.

Eili relaxed her hold on D's arm. The two were unable to really make heads or tails of the situation. The small girl's hands seemed to relax, dropping to her lap to pick grass from her shorts.

"Eili?" D asked aloud, looking up at the sky; it was darkening a little bit, but it was a happy occasional, allowing him to wander freely. "Can you show me around?"

"Sure." Her round and rosey-cheeked face filled with delight, the distraction most welcome. She climbed up to her feet and skipped away. D followed her through a path in the trees which had grown inside the enclosure, carefully picked through daily by at least two guards. The small patch of forest was relatively safe, with the greatest threat being spiders whose bite could render one paralyzed for several minutes.

The trees closed in quietly around them. The profound quiet underneath the boughs of the trees, still bare and vulnerable without their summer foliage, put the pair more at ease. D looked up, his pale face struck with a deepening expression of peace. Despite the threat of those inside the Refuge, there was the little one at his side. She was fascinating and joyful, her eyes like gems in her warm, tiny face. She held his hand, showed him wonders, though he felt always that he walked in a dream. Her hands were warm.

"This is where I can see faeries," she whispered when they crouched on their hands and knees. She touched the water of a small pond delicately with one finger. The surface rippled, and insects that were once dormant rushed to life. A cloud of tiny bugs rustled from their winter sleep, circled over the pond, while the ripple had become a slow dance of curves bouncing from one end to the other.

"See? Do you see 'em?" She pointed with her hand.

Just beyond the other shore of the pond, small faces peered from beneath the dead leaves. Their eyes had no pupils, simply one color, which varied from emerald green to caramel to carnation pink.

"Faeries," D whispered, and his heart was filled with a swelling delight. His hands trembled when he sat up slowly, his eyes fixed on the small figures across the pond.

It was the first time he had felt happy in a long time.

* * *

The following week went quietly, here and gone like the rustle of wind in the grass. Rhea had come to him before to measure him out for clothes. In the evenings, she was at her sewing machine wearing spectacles under the bright light. The hum of machinery and needles filled the night hours after dinner. Vice hovered at the vestiges of D's awareness, yet so long as Zhou was somewhere in the picture, the serpent child never came near. In a week, D had another set of clothes waiting for him in his trunk. His first belongings. He looked at them a long time before putting them on, stripping down quietly in a bathroom, staring at his body in a reflection that was only painfully half-transparent. When he put on the shirt, his skin goosebumped. The cotton felt so utterly soft on his skin. He was never more glad to be rid of the hard leather he had come wearing.

Rhea smiled and clapped her hands when he came back out. "You look marvelous! I'm certainly glad I took the time and effort to make sure it fit you. How does it feel?"

He smiled shyly. "It's nice, Mother Rhea." He ran his hands down the front of his chest, looking at himself. "There aren't any pockets. Why?"

"Because I thought I'd teach you how to sew them on. After all, I can't be sewing every little tear in the world. Only the littlest ones aren't allowed to sew yet. But I'm sure you can handle the task." Rhea's tired eyes glistened with mischief and excitement, and he caught her mood a little. If his father ever discovered that he had been learning how to sew--

"Are you up to the challenge?" Her expression was full of unguarded kindness, but it was a look she had practiced with potentially unsafe children. She wished she could feel more at ease around him. So far he had not given her much reason to believe that he was anything like his father; his black and unholy demonic countenance provided her with no end of nightmares, terrors in the dark that bid her scream silently with tears streaming down her face.

"Okay," he agreed. He changed into a second pair of pants she had made for him. In the clear light of her work lamp, he watched and listened to her instructions. Her soft chestnut hair fell across her eyes, which she brushed back irritably. Her supple hands worked deftly, starting the first stitches with cloth, before handing the task over to him. He was decidedly terrible at it._ Father would be laughing at me like a madman if he could see me. _Frustration made his unmarred brow wrinkle and he sighed darkly.

"I can't do this."

"Sure you can. It's alright if you can't get it on the first try. Nobody said you had to be perfect. Look, the holes are just fine; you just have to keep your line straight. If it helps you, maybe you should have a guide." She took the jeans from him, and started again. "You ought to use a thimble for stubborn fabric like this. Ah, damn it." She hissed, pulling back her finger. A small bubble of red grew on the tip of it, gleaming in the iridescent light.

_Blood._ Her eyes struggled to stay focused on the fabric, not wanting to see whether the boy had taken any sudden interest. The terror, bred into her very DNA, made her nearly swallow her tongue. She shut her eyes, dropping the entire thing to the floor and tried to hide the evidence of her injury. She felt hands on hers, cool and soft; a bandaid was slowly applied to her finger.

When she dared to look up, D had taken their shared project together from her and was gone like a whimsical dream. She trembled, afraid to shut her eyes a second time. Afraid to apologize to the boy whose feelings she must have inadvertly hurt.

She feared the red eyes of her nightmares, terrified to admit even to herself that she had become targetted by Dracula.


	4. D is for Damned

**Author's Notes: **What an extremely long chapter. I've had to go through this a couple of times for quality sweeps; it's been awhile since I've had to, y'know, write something so in-depth. I think I'm proud of my scope of characters, although getting into their heads is harder thani t seems. I'm so used to being spoiled and only having to get inside D's head. But I have plans for Zhou, Eili, Rhea and Vice. Veiled mature situation in this chapter.

**A Dhampir Story**

**Chapter IV**

D descended the stairs, his thick-soled boots silent despite the creak of the old wooden steps beneath him. It was pitch black, but his eyes seemed to catch every nuance in the dark and define every shape in colorless glory. It was quiet with sunset. Mouka had listened to D relate the story of his childhood, the pain in his heart when he could not sit down and do ordinary things with humans. It pained him more when he realized that his father ever haunt his childhood even when he was not under his old castle roof. The peace and quiet of self-induced isolation with which he was intimately familiar now was still new and prickly to the young boy of his past. He knew Mouka did not entirely understand everything D had told him, but he had appreciated the silence Mouka provided, the ear with which he listened in shocked rapture. None of the stories told of D had ever even remotely hit the mark. They had always told of his coldness, emotionless and imprevious at birth.

But every hero, it seemed, had to start at the bottom of the cosmic ladder and work his way up.

D found Miranda snuggled in the earth, her arms hugging a sword that once had crossed his own in battle. Her hair was cast around her in a magnifience pool of straight black. His eyes softened when she stirred, sensing the last vestiges of sunlight faded on the frigid horizon. When she opened her eyes and saw him standing at the foot of the stairs, her lips smiled, pointed fangs gleaming. It was not an evil smile at all, despite the terrible dagger-like teeth that rested in her mouth.

"Did you sleep at all?" she asked softly, raising herself upon her arms, piles of dirt falling from her shoulder. She stood, shaking off her boots before she came to him, slid herself into the stygian sheath of his arms, eyes like polished obsidian gemstones.

"A little."

She nuzzled against his chin, satin lips cool and persistent on his. It was promises like this that made his blood burn, likening it to nothing else he could have ever felt. In seconds, she effortlessly rendered him helpless to her whims with one soft entreaty: "Take me, D."

In the darkness, he did as she bade, undressed in quiet, their clothes for blankets on the cold floor. They grew only as warm as vampires could get, which wasn't very warm at all in winter. She and he brought each other into the unfamiliar heights of bliss, danced dangerously close to self-destruction as blood exchanged for blood passed between lips that were soon stained rosey with it. Afterward, tangled in the dark, coal black and pearl skin and shades in between, she rested her head on his chest and sighed deeply.

"You're not thinking about leaving, are you?" She felt vulnerable like this after their love-making, as he had gotten used to, fearing that his own insecurities would drive a wedge between them, as insurmountable as gravity. "Is that why you haven't been speaking to me?"

"That's not it at all." He closed his eyes, his arm sliding around her waist. He kept his left hand closed, but eventually caressed her hair with it, unfalteringly stealing every chance for the parasite living in it to speak. "I have a promise to keep here. It's been awhile since I last visited."

"Is it difficult to do?"

"No... and yes." The dhampir's voice grew slightly husky with emotion; it sounded peculiar to hear him speak so vulnerably.

"Who could possibly still live here?" Concerned, she placed a hand on his cheek. "Will you talk about it with me?"

"I don't know. It's been a long time; I find it hard to remember things about my past. I was just a boy." Like a cat, he leaned his head against her cool palm, eyes lidding with contentment. "My last visit was seven-hundred years ago."

"D..." Her eyes widened, the true scope of his age dawning on her just as hotly as it had for Mouka. He was ancient beyond compare and yet looked no older than his late teens. "But why do have to keep coming back? Surely anyone here couldn't care less if you continue to return for this promise of yours."

"That isn't true." He looked up at her, eyes snapping open wildly with cold clarity. He gave her such a look that she almost cowered. "There will always be ghosts. There will always be spirits left to remember the old days. Particularly those who were touched by the Nobility."

* * *

In her room, even the silent sewing machine in the corner seemed a threatening creature in the gloom. The night had closed its jaws firmly on the throat of day, not wasting a single drop of precious sunlight to escape its grasp. Her eyes were wide and the color of dark maple, syrupy with fear. It was creeping on to 11 Night. Sleepless, Rhea tossed her head to one side and pulled her pillow over her head. Muffled utterances about God's mercy tumbled from underneath it. She was not fairly religious, believing that God has forsaken her when she discovered she could not have children. But tonight seemed to grant her the courage to ask for His love again and protect her from the devil that was still haunting her sleep.

And before her eyes could totally fall shut, she felt him. God had really left her to his whims; she could feel him breathing against her throat even though she was securely wrapped in warm blankets that she herself had made. The world outside was holding its breath. Not a breath of air except for that cold, coppery breath that suffocated her. She counted down from five before she attempted to strike out with her hands, screaming.

Her hands were caught by those that felt carved of ice. She gasped, the cold burning of his touch drawing another cry from her lips. He bent close to her, and she saw his eyes again. Crimson and pulsing with his need, his unsuppressible thirst for her. She was overcome with revulsion, fought against the pangs of desire that were slowly pulled and plucked by the gentle way with which he touched her face, her throat.

"Integra," his voice sighed, pulling her deeper into his spell. She didn't care that it wasn't her name anymore; nothing seemed to matter, except that his hands kept touching her that way. He made her imagine red rosepetals on white satin, as bright and shocking as drops of blood.

"I... I...oh god, don't stop..."

And then suddenly, her eyes widened and she twisted her head toward the door. It was wide open and a small dark figure swiftly approached the bed. She came to her senses in an instant, the look on the young boy's face more alarming than the snarling expression of her night lover.

"Get off of her," said a voice that seemed monstrously calm. It sent cold chills down her spine, but none as worse as the touch of the man who crouched above her bed.

The man who crouched over her body laughed, a touch of sadism coloring his face as he gripped her wrist above her to show the boy. "So you want to ruin my fun, child?" he demanded, and squeezed.

Rhea cried out, throwing her head back as her bones snapped, her other hand clenching and punching in endless futility against his chest.

"Get out," the child said again. His face was a mask of shadows, but the man above her looked at him for a long moment. Then the boy's eyes changed... turning a brilliant scarlet. His power rose exponentially, challenging that of the vampire who had invaded this bedroom. The clashing of power lasted only for a second, but it was not because D had won that the vampire retracted the coils of darkness he commanded.

The vampire snarled and wrenched himself from the woman, busting the glass out from her window as he fled, a howling wind filling the room. The abominable cold and darkness lifted with his passage.

When the boy came near, Rhea swallowed the scream rising in her throat. Her terror returned threefold, and with it, burning shame. It was only D, whose eyes were ordinary and black. He looked to the window after staring at her. His mouth was naught more than a fine white line, his cherubic face markedly angry. "He's trying to torment me," he whispered harshly.

Stupidly, she curled her arm protectively to her chest. "My arm..."

"It's not broken. He only made you feel like it was."

D turned away from her, his shoulders hunched painfully under this new, difficult burden. "I have to leave this place... He'll make me watch you slowly succumb to him and then I'll..."

Rhea swallowed her difficult emotions. He was right; her arm was perfectly fine. She shuddered at the memory of those cold hands, touching her... making her feel things she didn't ever want to. "D? You know I won't ever blame you."

"Others will. I didn't do it but I brought him here... I brought his hunger down on this whole place." His voice became clearer, and cracked with unheard of emotion. He unhunched his shoulders slowly. The boy's sobs disintegrated Rhea's terrors and she immediately crawled out of the bed clothed in a pale violet, long nightgown, poking her toes into her slippers.

"It's okay," she whispered, leaning close to put her arms around him. "I will never blame you. I don't care what he does to me, but I'll never once blame you. You came in here and chased that bastard right out of this room, didn't you? I know you're nothing like your father, Deron."

An indistinguishable nod. The broken window needed fixing, but D was incapable of providing that service for her. The woman shivered, and pulled a blanket from her bed. "I guess I'll have to be sleeping next door." Another room down the hallway was meant only for storage. But there was a bed covered with piles of blankets that were deemed clean for newcomers. "Help me make the bed in there?"

The pair took blankets from the bed in the next room, packing them away on top of boxes in the corner. They tucked sheets in at the corners and edges, and then quietly transferred her pillows to the new bed. It was dusty and strange, surrounded by boxes and piles of unused blankets.

"Will you be alright?" D asked at the doorway, watching her crawl into bed again. "Do you... suppose... want me to stand guard out here?"

"No... No, you'll be alright. Just go on back to bed. I have a feeling you scared him away for good tonight." _But he'll be back. Back tomorrow night, and I don't want to think of what he'll do to me. _

_Or, god forbid, the children. I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to them..._

* * *

D had watched Zhou from the forest as the Easterner gave him not a glance. In the evenings and early mornings, Zhou would go out. D could never sleep as much as everyone else, so he followed him often and watched him take stances in the twilight, following through motion after motion with his eyes. These were what he later learned were intended for meditation. After about twenty minutes of the slow and guided movements, he would fight an invisible enemy in silence, rolling and diving, his body moving in ways no man's could possibly move. Every stroke of the sword was to D a lesson in poetry, a lecture in silent perfection. From experience, D could tell that he was in fact only a human but the discipline with which he trained seemed ingrained into every atom of his body. The young dhampir was entranced, never tearing his eyes from the martial artist as he danced death with a sword, a fire gleaming in one eye, as if his obvious hindrances meant nothing to him and there was no greater joy or sorrow.

* * *

Eili came out of nowhere the following morning. D was standing outside and looking for the scar-faced Zhou, a question burning on his tongue. He didn't hear her until the last minute, when she squealed his name. The next instant, he was face-down on the grass, wheezing, her tiny hands pulling on his shirt to pull him back to his feet. Her large round eyes were all a-sparkle with some huge level of excitement. "Gypsies are coming!" she giggled, cartwheeling in her excitement, doing the move so recklessly D was alarmed and followed her around to make sure she didn't hurt herself.

He was not sure he was glad to hear that gypsies were coming. They were little-known servants of the Nobility who sought out pretty faces for their immortal masters. But if it meant such great joy, then maybe D ought to forget about his father just for a little while. Rhea had been looking so tired and despondent lately that he was becoming intimately familiar with his worry for the one that Rhea had called his mother.

When it was high noon, D was forced to take shelter inside in the darkest place he could find within the confines of the dorm. He almost always had his window shade drawn against the oppressive daylight. He would have to wait until midafternoon before he could return to the outside world. He could not find Zhou right away, but he could sense that he was on the campus. While he cowered in the dark, Vice came into the room. D's eyes were hooded, the youth's aua darkening with resentment and cold.

Vice grinned as he approached the cornered dhampir. "Sun's nice and hot today, ain't it, sucker?" His tongue poked out, and it was forked. The irony made D want to retch. "That's right. You can't go outside when it's bright like this. Otherwise you'll turn crispy, just like your fucked up daddy."

Vice lunged for D, moving at speeds that was three times average human dexterity. D fell to the floor, slamming his elbow into the wall. D punched with his fist, landing a solid whack on Vice's ribs but nothing seemed to break and the snake boy's unceasing onslaught continued, reigning strike after strike with fists and nails that ripped sizable gashes in D's raised arms of defense. Then he shoved his knee into D's solar-plexus, knocking the wind right out of his lungs. The dhampir's breath went gusting out of him and he went rigid. Bile rose in his throat. Vice's hands closed right on his neck and he was dragging him, pulling the boy's inert body outside with a laughter that was almost amiable.

"Some sunlight," he grinned, "ought to do you good!" The sun, hot and bright, scalded and burnt his skin. It was fairly high in the sky; it was such a wretchedly beautiful day. He could see his heels scraping a wiggly path through the grass. Vice pulled his hair; then D was staring up at the sun, the immortalized enemy of his kin, and he felt his eyes burn.

"Leave him alone!" Eili darted like a bird from behind them and pounced Vice. He wrenched her off, kicked her away.

"I'll rape the little bitch too if you don't tell her to cut it out!"

"Eili," he panted, trembling. The sun seemed to grow larger, its heat searing and sapping away his strength. He was having that much more trouble breathing in the face of his greatest enemy.

Eili shrieked an unholy noise, throwing herself against the evil of Vice, head-butting him with her adorable but lethal little horns. They punctured his shirt, his skin, and he cried out angrily. He struck with his hand and knocked her into the grass, her body tumbling end-over-end. Her cry of pain, an anguished squeal, dragged D back from the brink of death-like coma and he twisted his head to look over his shoulder through blades of trembling grass. He saw her disappear underneath Vice, and found himself pushing his body up and sort of jumping into him. In a silent, murderous calm, he put his hands around Vice's neck and started to choke him, sitting on the boy.

Eili's screaming brought the adults. And Zhou was there among them. He might have been slightly rough with D, but there was a disturbing glaze over his eyes, and only Zhou could know that beneath the surface D was struggling with a monster that craved the death of his enemy, the one who had dared to harm one he cared deeply about. D was put inside down into the cellar, as close to underground as possible. While Zhou was burying him, Eili was relating her story in between sobbing and rapid-fire words, insisting again and again that D had not started any fight.

D tried to explain, but Zhou silenced him curtly. "I saw it," he said. "And I did nothing to stop you because I wanted to see what you would do."

"Why?" D demanded, laying flat on his back on the ground. "Why didn't you stop him? Y-You said... to call you. That mean you won't come and save me if you happen to wander by?"

"Who is going to save you if I'm not around? But you didn't think once to run indoors out of the sun. You wanted to save little Eili." However, his words sounded less like a reprimand for recklessness and more like an interested observation of the peculiar. Zhou's eye darkened. "You have a fighting spirit inside of you, bursting to be free."

D's blue eyes of unbreakable ice hardened. "Will you teach me to fight like you do?"

Zhou looked on the boy with mixed emotions. He schooled his expression to be empty after awhile, his eye dark, the solid black patch over his eye making him appear more of a menace than a friendly face. "What do you have that you want to protect so much?"

Mesmerized, D whispered, "Life."

"Whose?" The word dropped like a stone in the enclosed silence.

"Other people's."

Zhou sat back on the balls of his feet, hand resting on his thigh and the other on a barrel of clear water. He looked longingly toward the ceiling, as if something up there could possibly provide him the answer. D looked away, realizing maybe too soon that it would be no, and that he would have to suffer until he grew into his strength and became a true dhampir. But, unexpectedly, the reciprocal response came when D least expected to hear it.

"If you truly wish to take on this difficult path," Zhou intoned, "then think about this carefully. Your life will be that much harder with the knowledge you will possess. In time, I will tell you about the dhampir I once knew and maybe you will understand why I must hesitate to teach you."

In retrospect, if D had realized the longevity of his existence, he might have answered just the in spite of everything his future self knew. That was knowledge privy only to the future, and there it would stay for that was the rule of time immemorial. But how certain could this young, inexperienced child be, when he had all of his rocky past behind him that reinforced the desire to simply hide away from the world so it could at last provide peace?

"I've decided." The boy turned over slowly, his cheek pressed against the cool earth. "Teach me. Tell me what you think I should know."

* * *

Judgment was passed; it circulated the ill-fated rumor that Deron was Rhea's favorite, that he had cast a spell on her to avoid punishments. Vice was only spreading such rumors because he had become poisoned with a fallible hatred for his adversary, the young dhampir whose face made him outrageously aroused and outrageously sick to his stomach. His hate was eternal and futile, because Vice was banished from the orphanage. He had tried to make a concerted effort to kill one of their number. The orphans saw Vice removed, and even his small band of thugs saw him away with no more than an obligatory gaze of blank distaste. They were glad to see him gone.

The boy trembled with outrage, the cart on which he sat rattling down the road, choking on the gas emissions of the little struggling engine. He turned away, promising, deep in his withering heart, that he would find him again... find him and kill him. Those eyes would be his one day, dangling from a string around his neck.


	5. Distant

**Author's Notes: **I added more details at the end of this chapter, since everyone's been agreeing that there wasn't a lot and it was rushed. I STILL think it feels rushed, but it needed a 'harder' ending to follow the 'theme' of the story... Bleh, what THEME? Grr.

**A Dhampir Story  
Chapter V**

Nights and days wove together in a familiar and comforting pattern. D no longer dreaded the evenings; it was usually the time when his father would rise from his coffin, suffusing every air molecule with his malicious, ill-boding presence. Those days after Vice was banished, he almost regularly slept at night with the others and went outside during the mornings and evenings with Zhou to practice. No one dared say anything about the activities; Rhea only frowned at D the first times he went out in the afternoons, but eventually it became perfectly acceptable routine. Eili's intense interest in the on-goings quickly dimmed when she found herself drawn to other parts of the small forest, wanting only to spend time with the faeries by the pond or call to the birds.

D liked the morning the best. He liked listening to the world waking up, feeling the air tingle on his cool skin, while he was just entering that half-asleep state. But those mornings were for waking up, and every day he trained his body to come to life, a machine that had to be programmed to work during the day. It was hard; he would often collapse of sheer exhaustion, his dhampir body too unaccustomed to functioning in the unnatural light of day. In the end, it was not difficult to overcome this. In the pale, timid morning light, Zhou told Deron of the days gone by, of the dhampir he had known. The dhampir he had known had no name of her own, having been born unwanted and dumped away to survive with monsters. As the dhampir child grew up, she became fluent in the languages of all beings, speaking the quiet whisper of those who dwelled in the trees and cared there for flowers and made their poisons. She rode on the backs of enormous wolves; she clung to the feathers of giant roks, and felt the wind of the high altitudes on her face. But she could only enjoy these small treasures during the night, when none could see her, where the sun could not touch her sensitive skin. She was revered as a warrior against humans but she was never a spokesperson for the Nobility.

D listened to the stories with a measure of skepticism. However, Zhou's voice spoke with such fervor and deep conviction that D believed him despite his natural skepticism; through faith in the story, he enjoyed it that much more. He could almost imagine this powerful lady, whose ally was the unbending night and the animals that dwelt in it, skulking with their furtive eyes illuminated by only the moon and the stars.

Two months went by like this, a blur of stories and hard work. It seemed to D as if he had missed a miracle; he closed his eyes for sleep one night and woke up and there were leaves and flowers exploding with new life everywhere. Granted, the occasional rogue weather controller spawned off a storm of epic proportions, but safety measures were installed in the event of floods and mudslides.

Harboring some dissatisfaction that Zhou took no particular action about the feelings he held in secret for Rhea, D was nonetheless happy that Zhou acknowledged the efforts of his demonic father and began to stand guard some nights with the young dhampir at his side to keep him awake lest he start to nod off. In that sleepy darkness, there was a quiet and unspoken companionship that seemed stronger, underlying the obvious looks and perfect understanding.

Zhou looked lonely enough on his own, but he seemed more isolated with the youngster by his side. Zhou looked up to the child because he was a dhampir and also because he was the bravest young dhampir he had ever met. He did not fear the sun as most others did; he did not even fear his own father. Just what exactly had his life been like before he had finally been cast out of his home?

"Really, D. Will you talk to me about it?" Zhou struck with his sword, and the much shorter person deftly placed his feet where he could quickly manuever out of reach of the sword and then rebound again with a counterstrike. Beads of sweat were dripping down Zhou's scarred face. The pair's shadows danced like featherless crows on the soft grass in the weak sunlight.

"About what?"

"Don't be foolish. Your heart will be poisoned if you keep it all inside. About your father, the way he must have treated you." Steel sparked like magnesium firework, bright flashes one after the other. The boy looked small and weak, barely defined muscles forming on his body, but he was putting Zhou's body to work.

"You're assuming that it bothers me? Maybe," D replied softly, darting out of reach like a black fox, "maybe it bothers you that I don't _want_ to talk about that with anyone. But if I tell you a little bit, will you answer my own question?" A guarded look came over the youngster's face. His serious voice belied his innocence; he seemed already to have grown into a mind much older than what he appeared.

* * *

The memory faded into forgetting again. He gave no sign that he was remorseful, but he had often thought about Zhou these past few days. He had learned many of his Taoist techniques - including the use of wooden slivers as weapons - from that scarred old Easterner. As the sunlight faded into night again, D stood up and excused himself from his traveling companions.

Fresh snow had fallen, masking their footsteps. It was far too cold for many of the monsters to show themselves tonight. Moonlight drenched the snow in a shade of blue, like ancient ice bergs flowing and rolling in the darkness. His boots never sank into the snow, barely leaving a mark as he strode across the top of the blanket of blue-stained ivory. The old house to the side was wrapped in the furry cover of bushes that grew all year round. The spiny barbs on the bushes were unseen like cat's claws under velvet snow. The entrance was collapsed, the door hanging from a hinge and skewed like a crooked, blackened tooth. D observed for a minute or two.

In a flash, he leapt clear of the flying barbs which made the powdery snow explode in every direction. The barbs disappeared into tiny holes they made in the snow, his body sailing clear. With the clear ring of steel, the terrible bush rooted in the ground was hacked away three times. The barbs ineffectively sailed through the air in defense of the onslaught. When D descended for the last time, the bushes were all piles of wood and unused barbs. They were deadly creatures, not native to this last, posing as plants in order to capture and devour their prey once the barbs rendered them inert.

The doorway cleared, he entered the four-bedroom shack, enroaching on the sanctity of this tomb. The windows were all intact still, so that the only debris in this room was dust bunnies and cobwebs clinging to every available edifice. There was a round table, and on it an ashtray, an unopened pack of playing cards. One of the tables had fallen over. He had never been in this house as a child, since it was off limits to the orphans. There was a refridgerator, holding gods knew what. He did not try opening it, but kept his eyes locked on the short hallway at the other end of the room. The knitted carpet under his feet crackled under his feet. Though the colors were muted, D immediately stopped to stare. It was something Rhea had made once for the shelter of the orphanage guards. To brighten the place up, she used the large, old wooden machine to make the rug for them. There was lots of blue, green, purple.

D trembled only a little from a tinge of memory. These were old things better left alone. Why should he weep for memories?

The corridor, then. Chipped acrylic paintings still hung there on the walls. He knew who had painted them. Of all the guards who stayed here, only Zhou had treasured a set of paints and fine-tipped brushes among his possessions. He had tried to teach D to paint once, but it was with some disappointment that the dhampir had no talent for art.

Zhou's room. He was sure that Zhou had died here, leaving his belongings behind. He looked at the small shrine, untouched in years, collecting dust. Without speaking, D approached the shrine and lit three stalks of incense, crouched on the floor. He prayed to Zhou and his ancesters and wished them well. When he finished that ritual, he looked around his room again, loathe to touch the items of a dead man.

Then he noticed a photograph in a wood frame by the bedside. It was smeared with dust. He lifted it from the bedstand and rubbed his thumb over the picture. The woman in the picture was older than the Rhea he remembered, but it was unmistakably her.

"Did you love her?" he asked the room, so steeped in Zhou's presence and memories.

* * *

"That's quite a question," Zhou answered as he leapt backward, breathing hard and glaring at his pupil. "I don't think it's any of your business, if you don't mind."

"But you do. You said you've stayed here for years already. You really love this job and these maniacal imps?"

"I love the atmosphere... and when there aren't evil children and monsters, it's almost peaceful. Enough!" He held up his hand. D relaxed and faded back into a shadow, still as a portrait. "Are you asking me because you care, or becaue you're jealous?"

"I'm not jealous; she's far too old." D wrinkled his nose, exhibiting a sort of playfulness. "I can't guarantee what'll happen when I'm older, though. It's not my fault I'm pretty."

Zhou laughed out loud at that. "I am being too nice to you. It is making your head much bigger than the rest of you."

They grinned at each other, but the question was not yet answered. Did Zhou love Rhea from that safe, uninterrupted distance? Was he that selfless? It was unquestionable that Zhou held some feelings for her. D could not make him admit it, but there was no denying that Zhou would try to look at Rhea through her window as she worked at the sewing machine or brought her knitting outside.

When D emerged from the dappled shadows among the trees, rapid footsteps alone revealed her; the horned demon girl dashed from behind and pounced on top of him. He crashed to the ground, gasping with shock. "Eili! Ngh..."

"Deron!" she squealed, hugging him tightly about the chest. "I got you, I got you!"

"I should have been paying more attention," he groaned, getting up stiffly with Eili clinging to his back, her eyes bright and glistening a sharp, mischievious green. "Where do you want to go?"

"Over there! The lake! I want to see the fishes!" The little girl squirmed and pointed the way, and so D led the way. He knew Zhou harbored feelings for Rhea. It was not his business, he knew, just as Zhou had said. But he wanted to see them happy. More than anything, he wanted to see them together before he left this place one day. He had no conceivable idea why; he just felt that for once, something beautiful could happen. Something wonderful could thrive and exist in this dark, cruel world.

There was only one dropped stitch in his plan. For that to happen, he would have to become strong enough to face his father and force him to stay away from this refuge as long as possible.

As the pair traveled along to the lake and tossed tiny, smooth stones into its dark unmoving surface, he thought about all the ways he could somehow stop him - that figure carved out of the same fabric as the night, the time of monsters even greater than werewolves, goblins, and seductive faeries. He had to contain his father's vengeful soul, though those who had tried in the past all met a similar fate as the bodies which topped the pointed spears below his dining hall window. D had difficulty sleeping when he had nightmares of their impaled bodies rotting in the elements.

"Stop Dracula, the King of Vampires." He looked across the lake. He could see, only dimly, the faintest outline of the castle.

He could not protect Rhea from Dracula all the time. Zhou could do that. He was a strong human, maybe the strongest D had ever met. He found that between them lay respect and understanding and quiet love: D's love for a master and a mentor and Zhou for a student and maybe even a son...

Eili splashed in the chill lake water nearby. Her splashes made rainbows out of droplets that sailed and wobbled into the air like little planets. Peaceful and yet, his stomach clenched and rebelled against hope. D's quick eye caught motion under the water; a mouth like a blackhole, limitless in its tenacious hunger, rimmed with rows and rows of sharp jagged teeth, opened wide and rose above the waves.

D was a spurt of motion in an instant out of the way of champing, gnawing teeth. Eili's tiny squeak went unheard as a twenty foot crocodilian creature waddled its way up onto shore, water sloughing off its barbed sides, the small girl Eili balanced on the top of its snout. One hard shake and she would be airborne and conclude her existence on the hard stony pebbled shore. The beast's entire length quivered with powerful muscle, unspeakable hunger gleaming in its black-rimmed, ochre eyes. Its body was the color of the lake, kelpie green with mottled stripe markings along its hard, unyielding armor.

There atop its nose, the half-demon girl was perched, clinging like a mouse to its nostrils with pale knuckles. D stared with alarm constricting so hard in his chest that his mouth gaped open as if to let it out. He did not know it but he screamed and scrambled and ducked away from the animal. How could this monster have been sleeping underneath the water?

There were strangled howls from afar. Were they shouts of men? D looked at his belt and noticed he still had his sword. Some preconcieved notion of herosim sparked in his heart; he looked up and, in spite of the fullness of the sun, so bright and rising on the smoky horizon of the lake, the sword in his hand felt like a burning brand that seared itself into his palm, into his fingers. He flew like a vicious raven, striking with every inch of his body invested in destroying this beast. There was a brightness and a heat, a heavy drumming in his ears, blinding and pure, and every fiber of his body ached for a mere two seconds. Then all went black, sharp pain stabbing along his thigh and he was sucking cold muddy water into his nose, long after his vision hazed.

The battle became a flurry of sword-strokes and attacks. At one point, a forearm from the monstrous reptile went flying through the air, punctuated by an exclamation point of blood splashing across the watery stones.

* * *

"The water was so red... it was like it wasn't water anymore. It was like the lake had turned to blood, completely, inutterably." Zhou looked down at the young boy. Eili was just fine. She was cold and wet from being thrown into the water. But D was laying on his back on the shore in a small pool of blood gathering underneath his thigh, which had been perforated with teeth the size of a grown man's arm. His body was as abandoned as an old rag doll. His face was still remarkably beautiful even with terrible pain written all over it.

Rhea was trying hard to be strong. Her eyes were red with the promise of weeping, but she walked right over to the boy and started to act her role as nurse. However, the boy's eyes flew open and he let loose a sound like an animal dying the moment her fingers touched his ruined, blood-drenched pants.

His eyes were red as fire. His fangs were pointed and prominently gleaming. Rhea leapt back and lost her footing on the wet stones, only to fall back into Zhou's arms. Blushing with fear and traces of alarm, she twisted her face away.

"No. Look at him. This is a dhampir... but don't ever forget that he is still the boy you rescued, abandoned and alone. Isn't that why you continue to take care of these children?" Zhou made her look again.

The dark-haired youth gave no other sound. Like any boy, he wept now, as if he had fallen and only scraped his knee. However, the blood loss had stained his eyes red and the thirst for replacement blood rampantly throbbed in his teeth. Rhea tried to overcome her innate fear of the Nobility, but it was hard and her terror drummed her into submitting to her tears. She pulled away from Zhou to suffer her anxiety by herself. Zhou watched her go, before he bent over D's prone form.

"You are stupid," he growled at him, his own anxieties making him sound gruff and callous. He bared sharp steel against his own skin. At the spurt of fresh blood the dhampir boy jerked against his weakness and fixed his omnipotent eyes on the blood welling on Zhou's arm. With a grunt, he sat on D and poured his own life into him. More and more of it was squeezed into his mouth, never letting those cursing fangs touch his skin. With his other hand, he pushed D's head down against the stones and only let him drink what fell between his eager lips.

The boy's injured legs writhed and twisted. It sounded painful, the noises he made, the quick and terrible pants as he drank his first taste of human blood.

Then when he was sated, and Zhou could get up without fear of any violent reactions, Rhea approached again. D's neck went slack and he went into a deep, fitful slumber.

"He should be fine, for now," Zhou said. It was then he noticed the small group of shocked, horrified, angry onlookers watching. The guards looked upon Zhou with dislike and suspicion most of the time, but now they looked at him with seething hatred. They looked betrayed; they must have felt as if their very livelihood was no longer safe at the hands of madmen like the Easterner who had just willingly given his blood to a monster.

"There's nothing else to see her, get back to your duties, if you please." The one brown eye of his seemed to grow redder as he focused it on the flock of people and children before them.

The group was cowed by Zhou's unwavering calm. Either that, or Zhou somehow had a power over them that did not outwardly show on his face. They dispersed, and Zhou lifted D into his arms and retraced his steps to the main dorm house. The children gazed onward with deep fear and concern. Rhea was flanked by Eili who clung to her shirt hem, blinking at the sun and the horror that was the beast dead in the water that would have eaten her, were it not for D's heroic leap of faith.

The monster's body served as a feast that lasted for a month. Its solid armor was sectioned into pieces that could be sold to pay for the expense of necessities. Some of the armor was kept for other uses for tools and armor and other utilitarian needs. The meat was a prize to be treasured. It was a bit tough but with the right amount of spices and marinade to be transformed into a tasty, tender wonder fit only for royalty.

D slept through hours of the work. The incident with Zhou's blood was forgotten in the sweaty work; everyone was involved in bringing in the monster and hacking its body into managable pieces. Zhou alone was left to his devices. In the light cast by the window beside D's bed, he sturdied himself on a stool while he sewed the large gashes in D's leg shut with a sturdy twine that would disintegrate with time. The boy seemed paralyzed with sleep; not a single hair stirred on his pale brow as he worked. The pain was gone, leaving in its restless wake a quiet and terrifying contentment. Like an animal who had fed well. The dark lashes on his face rested on his cheeks, the cherubic beauty of him captivating Zhou even when he recognized the effects.

He quickly looked away. The work was finished now. When he stood up, his spine made tiny pops and he grimaced at them. He heard a quiet footstep behind him. Eili circled the bed to be at D's side, and when she was there she crawled up onto it, her horns gleaming with several extra rings to mark her growth. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"He should be."

"He saved me," she whispered, brushing her fingers over his face. She seemed absorbed in the process of touching him, making sure that he was still in one piece. "Mr. Zhou?"

The Easterner cracked his knuckles slightly before putting his medical tools in the bag. The way her voice lilted with urgency snagged his attention like a fish on a hook. "What is it?"

"I think I like Deron," she said. "I think... no, I really, really like him."

"Oh. Oh, dear." Zhou shook his head, and looked at her. So vulnerable did she look, but caught up by the intensity of her emotions, she seemed at least a year older. "You're just very grateful to him for saving you."

"No, Mr. Zhou!" she insisted, shaking her head very sternly, her damp locks flying. "I love him! He's going to marry me someday." Children's wild fancies ran away with them every day, but the tragedy of her words gave Zhou a moment's pause. She truly believed Deron to be the one for her. Nothing in the world could have changed her young mind. For, as Zhou loved to pretend that Deron's ending would be a happy one, he believed one thing to be true for all dhampirs: the distance they spent their whole lives trying to expand or close between themselves and others.

"Of course he is," he lied gently. "One day, you'll be married."

Zhou hoped at least once that he was wrong.


	6. Damaged

Author's Notes: Well, I've been having a hell of a life experience what with having my heart ripped out and chopped into little pieces and fed to me by a smiling ex-boyfriend. At any rate, this is chapter 6. Warnings for mature-ish type stuff. Okay? But nothing pron worthy. I hope. Yeah.

A Dhampir Story  
Chapter VI

In the present, D continued his investigation of the Refuge. The lake was covered in a hard shell of ice. He gazed across it as if longing to see the spring, before he turned away at last and trekked back up the snowy path, his boots barely stirring the snow. The treelined woods seemed so much smaller now that he was quite a bit taller. That did not stop him from ducking his head and quietly stepping into the muted stillness. A carpet of white, strung with a trail of footprints by small animals, lay beneath the black fathomless canopy above. The small pond through the underbrush was plain silver through the naked branches. If D had been smaller, he could have easily taken the tunnel made by underbrush to reach the pond. As he was now, he was forced to duck down and half-crawl through. He dug his left hand into the snow by the side of the pond.

"Sleeping," muttered a voice in the snow. "I'm freezing my eyeballs off now; can you cut it out already?"

D pulled his left hand out of the snow.

"Brrr! Sheesh. Now I _know_ you're trying to kill me."

"You said the faeries are sleeping, right? Then let's not disturb them." He stood up and dusted the snow from his knees before looking to his right. The brim of his hat bumped a branch and sent a tiny avalanche of snow down across his arm. "But I know it's here somewhere, hiding."

Without so much as a hint to explain just what he meant, the hunter retraced his path through the small forest, taking familiar pathways that looked alien in the moonlight. Small, glowing eyes gazed at him from the branches. An otter splashed its way down a narrow stream and glared over its sleek shoulder before disappearing into a snowy tunnel.

As a courtesy to those who had no families to go home too, there was a graveyard set aside on the grounds. It had no church of its own and of course the Refuge did not have the money to hire a priest. But with a modest little cross by the gate, the graveyard served well enough for those who had no one to collect their bodies if and when they died in the line of guardianship. D pushed open the gate, piling the snow up against the opposite end. He slipped inside and stood much taller than the tombstones which wore hats of sparkling gemstones made of snow. Sparkling icicles hung from a tomb. Grandmother had died, D remembered. She had died of pneumonia one winter and he remembered, quite painfully, the arduous task of making her grave for her by digging through layers of snow and ice and frozen earth. He shut his eyes and listened to the quiet moans of the spirits.

And then he turned and made a steady walk toward an empty patch. He drew the long bright steel sword from his back and considered the snow. A person could have stared at the scene and concluded that the dhampir was considering marking his own grave for future reference with that sword. However, the hunter backed up one step and turned his body only a fraction before his sword ever moved. The blade did not touch the snow at all; with the sheer force of the slash, a pie-shaped swath of snow blew away from the ground as if the wind had come to carry it away. There, in the exposed earth, was a small flat piece of stone with a scratch marked on it.

D did not move it or touch it. He simply gazed at it with a melancholy air, his sword pointed down at the earth at his side. He did not need to know; there, beneath the frozen earth, centuries old, was the dwarf skeleton of a perished infant. From the maw of time came the mewling cries of a newborn, desperate and hungry for life.

"Are we finished yet?" the parasite complained. "This is creeping me out. Every time we come here..."

"It's necessary," he intoned. "To keep it from happening again."

"You can't protect everyone," the parasite sneered. "Why do you keep trying? Coming back here doesn't prove anything."

"It proves that humans cannot fight destiny, no matter how hard they try. It's just like the changing of the seasons. No matter how hard you want spring, it has to be winter first, cold and bitter. Only then can you fully appreciate the blooms that come afterward." D looked at the infant's grave. He did not say whose it was. But now that he had found it, he remembered. He remembered more clearly than he wished.

* * *

The night brought its familiar, stygian terrors, monsters wrought of the unholy science that the Nobility had begun when they overtook the world. An ungodly spectacle presented itself before the guards the night that _he_ came again, calling for what he had claimed as his. The darkness fell that night; in the coveted warmth of the blankets, Eili curled herself up against the sleeping dhampir's body without thinking at all that he was birthed from the womb of a woman, fathered by a monster.

Haunted by the sight of blood passing through young lips, the woman Rhea lay awake by the light of her sewing machine and worked quietly on a patch of cloth that would soon become a new dress for one of the quickly growing young ladies of their group. Spring was coming and many of the clothes were crying out to be cut down for warmer weather.

But the night was chillier than she remembered to be, particularly this time of year. Her arms prickled with goosebumps; she heard Zhou shifting outside her door, straightening himself as he felt the change as well.

The cold became more oppressive; her fear of the unknown, of the tangible darkness, began to commandeer her senses. Instead of remaining frozen with terror, she quickly left her safe, comfortable chair beside the sewing machine and snatched up her new, refurbished plasma rifle. She bound her hair back from her face on her way to the door, which was opened wide until the very moment it slammed shut in her face.

Her eyes widened. Zhou. Zhou could help her, he was just out in the corridor, he could get the door down and, well, even if he couldn't, she could still shoot. She was a damn good shot, even in the dark, she could hit a fly of a horse's ass from six-hundred yards with the worst goddamn peashooter--

A voice at her ear. She couldn't make out the words. Just that the voice was speaking to HER, commanded her to listen, and that's all she knew. Her hands felt as dry as sandpaper. They made a funny rasping noise as they let go of the gun and let it fall to the floor. Fear seemed closer to her than ever; it was her friend, it had gotten her out of trouble before. The funny noise her hands had made was no longer her hands, but her own rapid breathing. She clenched her hands on air and forced her eyes to stay open, despite the terrifying, insistent touch on her eyelids to shut them.

"My dear," the voice persuaded, "surely you want to shut them? I cannot bear to look into your soul, to see my own monstrosity reflected back at me. There now, isn't that more comfortable to be laying down?"

Her eyes rigidly focused on the figure of the man who hovered above her. He was surely the most beautiful man she had ever seen, with eyes like hard, polished rubies. His hair was like silken raven wings, clean and uncombed and gleaming like the glossy film of dragonfly wings. Several dozen pieces of hair fell over his eyes, almost completely obscuring them. He had a smile, no, a sneer painted on his lips that seemed to be frozen on that handsome face. His hands brushed over her bosom and paused over her thudding heart. Beams of crimson washed over her hungrily, and she could not help but love the feel of those eyes. A halo of eyes seemed to blossom in each shadowy corner of the room; every one watched at her, unblinking. Maybe it was the Nobility's power, making her think she liked it when she knew it was so repulsive she could vomit.

She heard her own whimpers passing from her lips. The bedspread at her back felt unwelcome and filthy, as if a thousand insects were crawling over it and under it, all of them itching to get their mandibles into her skin. She shut her eyes at last, reopened them again with a gasp. "Get away ... get away from me," she wheezed. "I beg you, please!" A moment later, she thought of D, but the urge to cry out for him died when she realized hopelessly that he was injured and would not wake to save her.

The voice that made her skin hot with desire and yet crawl with revulsion purred at her ear. His lips felt silken and cool for her feverish flesh. "Do you want me?"

"Stop... playing games with me...!"

"I concur. Perhaps we should merely consummate this secret meeting, dear Rhea."

She was slowly losing her own awareness. She noticed with a distant sort of shock that she was being undressed, her chaste skin bare. She gave no uttered word for or against this; she merely clenched her legs tightly together, writhing even when fingertips proded and wormed their way along her thighs to explore the eager heat between them. When they finally succeeded...

She screamed, her hands flying for the hair of the rapist. She grabbed and pulled, infuriated by the laughter of her tormentor. Her legs kicked, her shin connecting solidly with a body that felt like steel. Pain raced up her nerve-endings and she cried out, frustration and shame painting her cheeks crimson. "Damn you! DAMN YOU!!" she sobbed, fighting against him even when his cold fingers pressed her wrists to the sheets.

"Too late," the vampire Dracula replied, his body crushing against hers to quell her struggling. "Much too late. Ahh, I can tell just by this--" He lifted his fingers to his lips and licked at them. "--that you want me very much."

"Get off!!" she whispered. He was so heavy, as if he weighed that much more than he looked. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her body heat rising hotter. He was heavy and smelled like juniper and pine, and she wanted him so much that her mind was tearing itself apart to make sense out of it.

"I remember that you can't bear children," he sneered. "So there is no danger of impregnating you with my unwanted seed. Which means I can have you, again and again, as many nights as I want... as many as _you_ want..." His teeth felt too close to her throat. She threw her legs around his waist and pushed against his chest with all her upper body strength.

"Don't!" she warned. "Keep those goddamn fangs away from me...!" She panted for several seconds, seeing his face for the first time in the light. He looked hurt, almost as if he had not expected her to be so adamant. But with her body so near, her hips gently pushing insistently against his own, he forgot all about his wounded pride and laughed callously.

"Very well. Now she's beginning to see the light."

The night felt like it wouldn't end. Her tears fell unbidden, first caused by her extreme shame... until she felt more pleasure than she knew she could experience. Her arms wound around his back and held him to her, her body disobeying every scrap of reason she dredged up to disobey. Her voice rose like the yowls of a feline, tossed violently on waves of manic sensation. She could no longer see his face, curtained by his dark hair. His smooth skin and hard muscle provided no comfort at all; his body was cold as winter, the flesh inside of her bruising and un

Even though she could not be cursed by his seed, she already felt tainted by an uncanny shadow, as if her soul was already sold to the greatest devil of them all.

* * *

Zhou woke the following day with no recollection. He was left with an ill feeling that something very wrong had happened, that everything was amiss. It was the same as if he had woken up and realized he had been living someone else's life for years. And, on top of that ill-boding sensation, his eyes ached, his limbs felt bruised. In the morning light, Eili was still snuggled in D's blankets like a ball but D was nowhere to be found. The dhampir's whereabouts became an obsessive mystery as Zhou rushed as quickly as he could from one end of the dorms to the other. Eili, when woken, blinked sleepily and replied that she had not been awake when D had left and then proceeded to worry about him as well.

With the little horned half-demon child trailing with rapid footsteps behind him, the man stopped just before the doorway into Rhea's bedroom where he heard the boy's voice. Hearing the urgency in the boy's voice, he pushed open the door after a quick knock with his knuckles.

"I couldn't--I couldn't!" she sobbed. "I couldn't stop him!"

"What happened? Rhea... please, be at peace!"

The woman clamped her mouth shut in a moment. Eili hurried into the room, squeezing past the doorway and Zhou's leg, falling over before scrabbling to D's side. Her overalls were still stained with yesterday's grass. But she loyally stayed at his side. D turned his bloodshot eyes to her and said as gently as he could manage with a raw voice.

"Eili. I'm sorry, but could you go do something? 'Mother' and I have to talk." Something, deep down in the depths of those eyes, commanded something inside the girl to listen. She nodded in mute obedience, before sneaking around Zhou to vacate the room.

The three stared around with equally agitated eyes. The Easterner gave Deron a stern look that clearly ordered for quiet.

When Rhea could master her emotions once again, she clenched her hands around the blanket at her waist and she said clearly, "He... the vampire king... came to me last night. I don't know what happened. I kept crying out for Zhou... or Deron, but... oh god, I can't stand to think about those goddamn eyes!" Her tears spilled freely again. Uncomfortable with seeing her cry, the guardsman inched closer to the young woman.

Zhou found himself at a loss for words. The pain that blossomed in his eyes spread like a bloodstain to the rest of his expression.

But D could not remain quiet any longer. The anger in his eyes was given voice by his tongue, words like stones thrown at her as if she was solely responsible. "You let him! You let him take you and now you're damned to be his forever, don't you understand!? It never stops with death! You'll be his long after you ever see the end of this world!" His voice had gone slightly shrill, his supernatural voice rising to ear-piercing levels. But nevermind the cold silence, like a tomb, when his eyes fell upon the marks on her throat.

Now while the dhampir's leg was injured, it did not seem to cause him any hindrance as he ran up to the bed and stared at her so intently that the woman felt the same chill power that her night visitor's eyes had. He grabbed for her jaw. Zhou shouted something, but even then he kept his distance. There were marks on her throat, as if something had bitten two dagger-like fangs to reach her sweet blood. D could smell his father on her skin. His head felt full of cotton, and whatever was said to him was lost to obscurity. He slid off the bed and retreated to the far end of the room, a chillingly empty expression on his face.

"Perhaps... you should go," the voice of the Easterner penetrated his fog. He looked up and stared unknowingly.

Exhaustion, perhaps, or pain, rendered the boy's resolve as substantial as fine sand. The tautness loosened out of his shoulders and within a few moments he seemed no more capable of argument than he was of flying through the air with arms out-stretched. The corridor lay open to him, holding only one individual. Eili leaned against the wall, cushioning her lower back with her hands. She looked up when she saw him, and her eyes sparkled with the usual optimistic light. Yet, at the sight of the still and grim countenance of her winterlong friend, that light found itself smothered by the pain of well-known rejection.

The boy's eyes couldn't make the distance to meet her eyes. The door closed behind him and he walked the short distance to her, placed his hand on her shoulder, and stared through the window at the end of the hall instead. "Eili... I know... I know that--" The words formed a ball of discomfort in his throat. He swallowed. "...But you shouldn't." His eyes deadened, as did his voice. "Don't love me. I won't return it."

He did his best to walk with some dignity to the dorm hall. His bed gave him no more comfort than a slab of stone. His leg ached, and he was certain that it would be a pain that would not soon go away.

* * *

The present provided no comfort either. It was warmer than usual, but it made the snow stick to his boots. The vampire hunter offered no help when Mouka piled slabs meat caught the day before onto a hard steel plate suspended above the fire. The smell of meat, cooking and sizzling with warm juicy dribbling into the flames, made his stomach growl. The hunger for actual food caught the hunter by surprise and he ate, silently, cutting off pieces with a small knife he usually kept in his boot.

The small falcon huddled up on D's shoulder. Unsurprised, he cut off pieces and gave the bird of prey some of them. Mouka watched with a smirk from across him. "You're gonna spoil her rotten, you know."

"She keeps looking at me." D offerd a tiny smile; it seemed to make the room a bit brighter.

"So what have you been up to?" Miranda's sultry voice asked by his ear. "You've been going off and doing some kind of investigating... I'd like to know what you're looking for, specifically. Did you leave something behind?"

"No. When I was forcefully removed from my father's fortress, I came to live here. It was centuries ago that I spent a winter at this place, just a boy. I met an Easterner who knew more than I could possibly know. He willingly taught me ways to fight with a sword. He even taught me the value of patience and understanding. He was almost... like a father to me. More than anything, he was my friend." The dhampir had placed his hat on the floor, so there was no shadow to hide the memories flooding his eyes.

"What happened after the winter?"

"My father had been preying upon the woman who looked after the orphans here. The Easterner, Zhou, loved her - more than he could say. He wouldn't even admit it. But it wasn't a mystery, not even to the guards who shared their shifts with him." His eyes darkened. He slowly cut off another piece, before the idea of food lost its intrigue and he put the meat aside. The falcon pounced upon it with fervor. The sound of a sharpened blade-like beak ripping into flesh, he continued, "The land was just warming up the night he came to her, after I had been injured fighting off that monster. That was when Zhou and I decided to leave the orphanage."


	7. Carmen Maxwell

**Author's Notes**: This chapter took a long time. It takes a lot of thinking to find words to make something sound epic and important. I've been out of my game lately... just sort of languishing in the spring thaw. It feels nice to be warm instead of frozen for once.

* * *

**A Dhampir Story  
**Chapter VII

As the travelers sat around their fire, listening to the dhampir's story, the night fell again. Unlike all other nights preceding it, there was a hidden menace, as if something that had slept for too long was stirring in its comatose. The yarn continued long into the chilling night, long after the falcon had nestled its way underneath a warm blanket at her master's side. The moon had risen taller than the tops of the tallest, gnarled trees. D's voice, patient and almost deadpan, never faltered unwinding the story, as if time itself had worn the words dull from cutting his lips with every syllable.

* * *

The hot sun beat down around the dhampir boy as he helped hitch horses to a wagon. A rare-but-necessary nuclear-powered cart was also prepared. It had sat in the storage shed for years, the upkeep of the vehicle provided by a dedicated student of technology who stopped by with light bulbs and electrical gear once every month. D stared with an almost-scowl carved on his face at the cart as it hummed nigh silently on the track leading to the gates through which he had been dragged little less than a year before.

He did not want to go. At first, he made the choice out of emotional urgency; now he failed to see why it was so urgent to leave Rhea when her hour of need was so great. At any time, that which he called "father" was free to come and go as he pleased, taking ever more of Rhea's humanity with every visit. Maybe it was him still reasoning to leave the one woman he could yet tentatively call "mother" to the wolf who howled at her door almost nightly, but with D's permission, Zhou wanted to leave her in the protection of trusted hunters who he had called to their aid with what little gold they could muster.

To further remedy this, he and the scarred Zhou spent an entire afternoon in the failing light raising crosses and every possible known anti-Nobility trick they possessed. In their combined knowledge, they had to force themselves to be content with the system in place in their extended absence for the hunt of Dracula. To anyone else, it was suicide. But to the ones who loved Rhea, who cherished her, and wanted her to live the fullest life she could with her human soul unstained, it was to hunt the Vampire King, or die trying.

The children were not jealous of D's bid for freedom. To the contrary, they were all moderately relieved that they were not about to embark on this disastrous hunt. On the Frontier, death came in forms that devestated the mind, the soul, as well as the body. The monsters that roamed the Frontier itself were innumerable. Ignorant of their own powers, forgetting their own heritage, they found themselves cowering from the hint of going out into the wide world.

Because the world belonged to the Nobility, even though it was slipping from its clutches as years went by, even children who knew nothing else had an inkling of the danger the Frontier posed at night and even during the day. The most fearsome monster ruled the night and the minds of all who toiled there. Needless to say, they all thought that D and Zhou were going to their bitterest deaths.

They did not envy D's journey. The dhampir boy could go get himself killed, and end their personal troubles with the Nobility. Maybe once D was gone, the Vampire King would not visit anymore and Rhea would be safe. It was as if the children had forgotten already what D had done to the lake beast. All that mattered was that he was gone and their minds would be put again at ease.

D climbed onto the back of a horse, took up the reins, and felt entirely too small from the saddle to the horses massive hooves. His eyes lowered, but no one could see how they glistened under the brim of the traveling hat Zhou had given him. He had already thought through all of those things, and nothing gave him any comfort. Rhea was standing at the doorway, dressed in blue jeans that had seen better days and a fair white blouse, eyes also burdened - but by the curse of the Nobility. D saw her and lifted his closed hand to wave, but she didn't return his gesture, barely turning her thin lips upward in a smile. It was as if she couldn't bear to look at him, for all that he reminded her of what came to her in the night.

In fifteen minutes, the electroshocking gates opened and the small group of hunters shuffled forward, two mercenaries sitting in the back of the electric car. As well as Zhou, two guards who were mercenaries at heart were added to their group after getting switched with a pair of new guards for the orphanage. They weren't very trustworthy men, but the promise of riches beyond compare in a Noble's castle were too good to shake their heads at. With Zhou riding on horseback in the front, the two took the cart; the engineer was also joining them, but he was hidden in the most guarded compartment. Among the skills of the hunter, people who could operate and understand the machines left by the Nobility were a valuable asset.

D was riding behind the group. There was not a single cloud to bother the hard, unbroken blue of the sky. It was not a good day for dhampirs to travel. Still, D had trained himself and additionally wore special clothes so that the sun was a mere irritation and not completely debilitating. That did not excuse him frmo the fact that he could still sustain the effects of sun syndrome built up over time. He promised to thank Eili for the hat as soon as they could return. She had found it in the attic, dusted it off, washed it herself, and given it to him just before tearfully throwing her tiny arms around his neck, pressing herself as tight as she could to his chest, keening like an injured animal until he could pry her off and stroke her tears away.

The road was not so bumpy as he remembered. Then again, he had come walking through mud, thunder and the rain the last time he saw this road. Seeing it from the back of a horse was a little strange. It was a brand new road to him. The trees towered ever so sternly, fierce no-nonsense sentinels of their green realm. At least that remained the same.

They picked up speed to get through the forest as quickly as possible. Three hours passed in such a way that proved boring, but the speed was probably a good idea. The woods were lovely, for sure, but darkness dwelled there too and even in the daylight, monsters of the Nobility thrived. The trees gave way to shrubs the size of a man, with gleaming deadly fruits growing on them. The scent of pine dimmed. The road became narrow and flat

A hundred miles of the home for half-breed children was another town. It would take them at least a day and a half to get there at this break-neck speed; four days if they rode more comfortably. The hunters gave D cross looks when he stayed up the first night when they stopped at a long, rickety bridge set on crumbled concrete crossing a sparkling shallow river. The water looked made of gold in the dying sunlight, but no one seemed to be taking time to enjoy the scenery.

Except D.

He alone walked by himself in the darkness, as if not a soul could touch him where he went, out of the shelter of the travelers' dim lanterns. He seemed to be an unwanted yet familiar ghost that the group had gotten used to, aloof as he disappeared and reappeared on occasion among them. None of them said anything when Zhou got up and disappeared as well. When D finally sat down by their small fire at a distance they wouldn't contend with, they tried not to stare at him. He could see that the whites of their eyes were full of meanness.

"We're going off to kill your daddy," said one mercenary, armed with a short spear and sporting a long, winding scar that disappeared into his shirt at his throat. He was packed with as much muscle as a rhinoceros. "Doesn't that bother you?"

"Not at all," D said. "I don't want anyone else to get hurt."

Cowed by the conviction in his voice, the guard said nothing. Finally he said, "We've never talked... but my name's Harvy. I've seen you with Zhou all the time. You can really catch on, eh?"

"Don't get chummy with the Noble brat," his companion growled, laying a meaty hand on the hilt of his axe - which was a double-edged slab of metal attached to an iron staff. "If his dad doesn't do us in, who's to say he won't lock those pretty lips of his on any of our throats and do the job himself?"

The first guard, Harvy, swallowed. "You really think so? He's been at the orphanage this whole time and never harmed anyone--"

"Bah! Probably just biding his time, or letting his old man do the work. Ain't that right, brat?"

"That's not true," the boy said coldly. "And I'd appreciate it if you address me by my name. It's D."

"I'll call you whatever I damn well want!" the bigger man growled. "And I'll start by callin' you shithead!"

"Sticks and stones," D muttered.

"What was that?!" The man stood up, the shadows of the fire transforming his face into that of a beast more than a man. "Run that by me again, you fuckin'--"

A dark hand shot out and grabbed the man by the back of the neck. "That is enough." Alarmingly, the fingers of that hand could not have fitted around even the big man's wrist - let alone his neck. Yet the dextrous digits applied pressure to all the right pressure points so that they made the big man crumble to his knees like a sack of grain.

"I apologize," Zhou said on the man's behalf. "He's easily high-strung. His blood pressure will go through the roof if he isn't careful." There was a slow confident smile on the man's lips now. It didn't sit well on his face. D didn't find it comforting in the least. He sensed with sharp intuition that there was always more to Zhou than what the man confided in the boy.

It might have been the wilderness. It changed people. A perfect gentleman in good society could be transformed in the dark forests to a thing that could murder without even reasoning the consequences, if only to ensure survival. That was the cold, hard way of the Frontier. A man could leave his family to travel for a year, and come back an entirely different individual - sometimes for the worst. Zhou had explained that it took a certain kind of discipline and character to be able to take off the mask worn to protect yourself on the Frontier when you are among friends and family. Some people never learned how to become the person they were before the teeth of the savage world had left its mark.

D huddled by the wagon's wheel and ate a sandwich consisting of bread, mayonaise and sweet-grown tomatoes the size of softballs. It was a small meal and would give him almost no nutritional sustenance. Luckily he did not need any blood at all yet in this point in his life.

The next day they resumed their traveling. At a crossroads, D's eyes swiveled to a dark shape that occupied a good part of the horizon, if his eyes followed the left fork. The shape seemed to smudge that entire hemisphere of horizon with a black pall, for there Death reigned in the guise of a fanged demon, draining all life from the neighboring environs until nothing was left. Small black dots circled the sky - and D knew from dim memories that they were not Nobility but enormous wings birds of prey, screaming challenges to their brothers and slaughtering anything with hooves and antlers; some birds were large enough to carry off an elephant. D had to tear his eyes away and purge the temptation to ride down that road straightaway.

The group of hunters went to the right-most path, not the center. In a matter of hours, they reached a small town growing out of a patch of grass - that was how small it was. It was a few buildings in no particular order, and tired looking people with tired looking animals ploughed the hard-packed earth, doggedly churning up nutrients where they could them. To D and the company of vampire hunters, these people couldn't look like they could lift a pitchfork against a blow fly, let alone a Noble.

Regardless, there was a saloon and they were in sore need of something to cool their throats. With the exception of D, of course. His appetite for ordinary food was diminished, but soon there was nothing but blood that could satisfy his changing needs.

Zhou had left his heart behind with Rhea, and he knew D was the one who noticed it the most. The boy had scoured his face for any emotion other than cold, knife-like determination. Needless to say, Zhou was a stone, and obstacles moved around him or be dashed against his surfaces. The man cast eyes around the saloon as soon as he entered, leading the hunters by his side and the young boy wearing a wide-brimmed hat to cover his face. His mouth, grimly tightened into a line, was not beautiful. His scarred face set many people back hard in their wooden chairs, avoiding his gaze like it could put a curse on them.

A few sun-baked gentlemen were sitting around a stained wooden barrel turned on its side, playing cards. They gave the group of hunters sidelong looks, but they were not necessarily an uncommon site on the Frontier, particularly in this sector. The boy was given no particular special treatment. Hunters came in all ages and descriptions, as varied as the landscape. But it was the creeping chill that emanated from the youth that gave them unwanted creeps.

Zhou sat at the only table unoccupied, and looked to be lording over it, two brutes at his side, and one small eerie young man standing near the door.

They ordered water and stew, and tucked in without much fuss. D ate nothing, but rather kept his eyes moving, looking everywhere but at anyone's face. Long before, Zhou had warned him what his gaze could do to people - stupefy or incise to anger. Rather than risk the latter, he looked at their hands and where their eyes were pointed, where their weapons were. There was a certain man in a yellow poncho sitting in the far corner. D watched him closest of all, for he could be hiding anything from a sword to a graviton beam emitter beneath that voluptuous, brightly colored cloak.

The Easterner put his hand on the table suddenly and loudly, leaving a resounding echo of skin hitting wood. Everyone stopped what they were doing. He stood up, and spoke in a commanding voice, that captivated his audience with words that sounded like they were a blowing wind from the far east. "My friends, I will tell you right now that we are on a mission from the One Above. It is a dangerous mission and maybe a fool's errand if you would like to think so, but by heaven it must be done. We are going to visit the Vampire King in the north in order to destroy him. Will you take up what arms you possess and come with us?"

Dead silence. Just the wind blowing outside. But inside, the men and one tired serving girl trembled and crossed themselves. The man in the yellow poncho didn't move an inch. D felt the animosity of a thousand hungry wolves take root in the presence of those gathered. He wished Zhou had not been so forward.

"And die?" growled a man. "We're not idiots, Easterner. This place is our home and the Vampire King leaves well enough alone as it is, though all of the good farming is further North where he keeps that damn castle of his and those damned birds."

A second man joined the braying, "If I haven't heard the stupidest load o' bullshit..."

The bartender inched toward a shotgun located beneath the bar within easy reach of his hands. D followed the movement, but kept an eye on the deceptively motionless blotch of yellow in his peripheral.

Zhou was not put out. "So you would rather squander your livelihood on rocks, never take back what's goddammed rightfully yours? Isn't it true you lot all lived quite peacefully in the North under the watchful gaze of the Count?"

"Yeah, way before our time, geezer. Siddown and shut up! We're not dumb enough to listen to you prattle on about some grand hunt!"

"Anyone who gets within a spitting length of that Noble's territory gets their limbs torn off--"

"--yeah, and their skin melted clean away by living micro-flesheaters right in the air!"

A chorus of voices added to the medley of torments awaiting any who approached Count Dracula's castle.

"I heard of a man who brought a fullybattalion of hunters from all over the Frontier. Skilled men, all of 'em!" A man said. "And in just one night, they all vanished. Nothing but corpses in that battlefield. And they all became ghouls that slaughtered those who managed to survive! That was just one vampire against a whole frickin' army!"

D tightened his mouth. He could say that these were mostly exaggerations, but he had heard of such a battle long before his birth. Some said the Count had unleashed his limitless power upon the unwary soldiers and slaughtered them in their sleep, so it was hardly a fair battle. Most of the Vampire King's court glorefied it as a day of reckoning, solidifying the Nobility's position and prowess.

The man in the yellow poncho spoke in a metallic voice that sounded like bolts rattling in a can. D had no idea what could make a man's voice sound like that, but he knew at once when he saw him push back his hood just for a second. Half of the man's face was entirely missing. In its place was a hard, crudely fashioned metal mask that covered up his mouth as well as the left portion of his skull. On the right side, his skin was white and shrunken beyond health, and one baleful brown eye focused in on the on-goings. The hair sprouting up through his scalp was dark auburn shot with white.

The man said distinctly, "I don't trust a man with words of revolution on his lips and a hand on the hilt of his dagger."

"I mean you no threat, directly or indirectly," Zhou answered.

"Yet you have that young man there guarding the door," the metal-faced man replied coolly, nodding at D. "You've come to the wrong place to rally an army of men, stranger. These people could not hope to win a fight against their lifelong enemy. The count is not a fair tyrant, and some say he is even mad."

"I have something that the others did not possess."

"What is that?" A rattling, metallic cough like from inside a coffee can resounded throughout the room. With a hydraulic hiss from his left leg, the man stood from the chair. A thump-click of boot and metal appendage announced his progress. "You have some uncanny skills about you? You know a few human tricks? Well, let me tell you that the Count knows them all, my friend, and has seen everything the human body can conjure in strength and cunning. He is an infallible foe."

"How do you know this?" D countered, watching the yellow poncho man's progress. The saloon had gone quiet, backing away from this bizarre stranger.

"What quarter do you have to speak, boy?" the rough, rattling voice snapped, rolling a mechanical red eye toward Zhou and his lot. "This isn't a battle for children, Easterner. I am appalled that you employ the 'talents' of one so small."

D did not let the insult injure him, but merely felt a smile bubbling from somewhere inside of him. "Maybe you would like to try my 'talents'."

"D--" Zhou began, before the very idea that entered the young boy's mind sprouted in his own. "Very well. I would like to make a wager."

"What?" The mechanical man made a noise that could easily be confused for a groan. "What are you saying?"

"A contest of skill and strength. The boy against you, uh--"

"Carmen," the metal man supplied, straightening his back with a groan of creaking metal. "Carmen Maxwell. You send this poor little bastard to his death."

"The boy against Carmen Maxwell. The terms are as such: no explosives, but anything else goes. To the death. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Mr. Maxwell answered, and they shook on it.

"My companions will see to the wagers."

The saloon soon bustled with activity, seeing an opportunity for easy cash. D looked unphased by the wagers against him. As soon as possible, everyone piled outside, heckling the two combatants. The hydraulic noises did nothing to ease D's rising nerves. The sun had become clouded over, and it might have rained were it not for the world holding its breath.

The miserable little street soon overflowed with the handful of civilians and people who lived on farms further out who had come to barter goods. The news of a fight brought an uncanny level of attention to the pair facing off in the middle of the narrow street. Standing at full height, D was only about five feet and seven inches, all told. Carmen Maxwell appeared to be at least double that, his wide frame under that yellow poncho armored by who-knew-what.

D was armed with a sword and his wits. Maxwell seemed to have nothing but mystery on his side. All the bets were made, and D's piercing gaze met that of the mechanical man with no more concern than a man drowsing in the midday sun.

"You are a but a child," Carmen Maxwell noted. "But I sense deception. I will uncover it and see your entrails scattered over this road."

D drew his sword, the sweet ring of metal bouncing back from the buildings.


	8. Death Part One

**Author's Notes:** Oh, it looks like another update. The heat lately seems to be draining me. Does anyone else without air conditioning find themselves staying up at night to write, when it's cool and happy? Heh.

**A Dhampir Story  
**Chapter VIII

The spectacle had aroused enough attention from the nameless town to call in the sheriff - a single man getting on in years but with enough vitality in his wiry limbs to accomodate for his age - overlooked the proceedings. This was a fair fight, both parties agreeing to the terms, and as long as things stayed reasonably safe for the onlookers he would not have cause to come between the battlers.

The mechanical man Maxwell towered over the young boy. His greatest innovations where battle was concerned were yet to be seen; clouds scudded aimlessly from one part of the sky to the other, but when a particularly large cloud blocked out the sun for what looked like would be a long time, the young man seemed to disappear from the spot. A collective gasp fell from the crowd, dissolving into a rowdy cheer as the boy seemed to appear with his weapon locked in the metallic grasp of Maxwell's left hand. Actualy, the hand was more of four grasping digits - one of them something like a thumb. Sparks flew when D pulled the blade swiftly out of his grasp, taking all four of Maxwell's metal digits with him. He bounded just out of reach of his abnormally long arm, swung like a club... except part of his arm folded out like a scythe to replace the hand, which folded in on the other side.

The crowd, spurred by the sight of metal and first blood, crowed for blood.

In the activities, Maxwell's hood fell back. The chrome of his skull was tarnished and filled with an assortment of dents, but it still caught the faded sunlight and glimmered. He leapt after the boy and pounced on his diminutive body, legs powered by an unknown energy core that may yet have decades of life-giving energy to lend its host. The pair parried blows, but the battle was more than just that against the boy and a machine. The audience was awed, and rioted louder after the sight of the Maxwell's "blood" - black stuff that was like oil but thicker, clumping up with the dirt.

The boy had lasted much longer than anyone had anticipate. The ones who betted against him were outraged. The small handful cheered for the eye-catching youth, whose fluid movements seemed to them a forbidden glimpse into eternit, that could train swordsmanship in a boy so young. But yet, as they gazed longer at him, a blackness settled in their hearts. Even the ones who had bet for him to win felt it - a terror so deeply ingrained into their very cells that it made their knees feel like water, their hearts tremble and their hands to rest against whatever weapons they had handy.

It was the fear of the Nobility, but they had lived under the terrible thrall of the black Count that they had almost gotten used to it. Could it be that this boy was a Noble himself? _Impossible!_ they thought. _He could not so much as put his pinky outside without it bursting into flames._

The crowd realized soon enough that the battle was coming to a bloody end. As the poetic figure of the youngster flew into the sky at a height of nearly fifteen feet, sword poised to strike through the heart of his foe, Carmen Maxwell let out a rattling howl like a dying car engine straining not to stall. The ground was puddled with black; D had struck his arms, his legs, cutting open vital (and depressingly undefended) arteries in the cyborg's frame. The black fluid could not have been oil, but maybe blood - recycled so many times over dozens or maybe even hundreds of years that it had turned from red to black. The stink of burning hair and hot copper filled the air.

Poised on a breath of air, D came down almost in slow-motion. The crowd held its breath. Not a scratch was on the boy, but still, they hoped... they hoped for a bit of good luck and some coin today.

Maxwell reached into the obnoxious bright yellow cloak and his hand emerged with four sleek metal spikes. Two of them, with almost lucid accuracy, shrieked at D's head and heart as he descended. There was no way he could avoid them in midair! A flashing white light severed them, and on the strike back he slashed the other two. However, the second were not like the first. On contact, they exploded. They were nothing more than glass with silver lining the inside, and within the shaped containers were black, gleaming scorpions with shells harder than metal. They bore wings shaped like dragonflies. Their wings made a horrible shrieking sound, as well as a peculiar mechanical clicking. The tips of their stingers were laden with any kind of disease-inducing poison. However, not once was D stung. Their harder-than-diamond shells cracked as soon as he got one hand safely around one and squished it. It fell dead to the ground, silent. The second zoomed around D in a circle, screaming and trying to get that lethal stinger into D's soft boyflesh. He landed like a cat on the dirt just within Maxwell's reach. The constant buzzing-clicking of the flying scorpion sent shivers down the watchers spines; D seemed to find it equally distasteful. He demonstrated his thoughts by catching it by a wing, throwing it down to the ground and stomping it.

Just then, Carmen reached out, snatching D's hat from his head, missing the hair he was going for, and D cringed away from the strengthening sunlight. Zhou watched with his heart in his mouth. But the boy surprisingly ignored the discomfort of the sun and took one graceful step toward Maxwell, who was still clutching his hat with some confusion.

One slash, and it was done.

Carmen Maxwell's chromed skull bounced four times before it rolled to a stop in front of Zhou, baleful mechanical eye blinking desperately before going out. D stood over the rest of the mangled metal, cleaning the oily substance from his blade with the edge of his cloak. He was not even sweating.

"Hurray! The little bastard won!" With jubiliant whoop, Harvy made a ridiculous picture as he practically danced in place, and slapped Zhou on the shoulder. He was one of the few who had bet for him, and pocketed some money with a leering grin. His companion scowled and strolled away back to the saloon to haunt the porch in the shade. He had not bet at all, thinking it wasteful and - honestly - he didn't much like the kid anyway.

The crowd was likewise dispersing its pent-up energy like Harvy. Money was given out to those who won the bet; those that lost skulked back to their farmhouses. D walked to the shade of another building, much closer than the saloon, and Zhou followed him, asking for the local innkeep. He said to D, "The sun is now your enemy. The clouds may be your allies, but they cannot shore themselves up against that ever-burning sphere."

The young dhampir nodded, eyes closed against the brightness of the sun.

Zhou smiled sadly and pulled the brim of D's hat down over the boy's eyes.

Until it became dark and after he was tired of people congratulating him, D found a place to rest inside an abandoned barn when no one was looking. He made sure to tell Zhou where he was, because he didn't want him to worry; neither Zhou nor D trusted the black looks that people gave them. Inside the barn, the roof was mostly intact. The smell of old horse manure, hay, and dirt pervaded everywhere, but it was one clean place he wanted. He relaxed against the dirt, pulled his hat down over his eyes, kept his ears open, and slept.

The next few hours passed, and the sun crawled away as though ashamed, behind another layer of thickening clouds which smelled sweetly of rain. Although the rain was welcome, it brought its own problems as well. Creatures came out in the rain, that thrived in even shallow puddles, that could snatch off a man's leg while he was still taking the next step. Monsters that migrated with the wet season came as well, from fleet-of-wing wyverns that followed stampeding herds of enormous purple bison, to the mutant hyenas that were just as likely to be prey as the shaggy horned bison.

Cicadas took up song, louder than any other time during that spring. The people's spirits lifted but a little, for the cicadas were a good indication of the coming storm. D woke up to the sound of the first patters of water on the alluminum eaves of the barn. And something else.

Footsteps, all human, and angry. They did not even bother to mask their approach.

* * *

Zeb took one look at his fellows around the card table, and finally threw down his hand, unable to concentrate worth a shit on the game. "Damn it. This ain't right! That brat either cheated or the old man did. And I haven't seen the kid since the fight."

"Me neither," said another man. Each man sitting at the table looked less like men and more like the muscled, darkened beasts made of darkly tanned leather, bad attitude, and steel ropes of muscle. Zeb had a glass eye that never quite looked straight ahead. He pushed the tavern wench he had been fondling aside in order to converse more closely with his companions.

"See, this here's what I don't like. In comes that goddamned Easterman," he jerked his chin subtly toward the small group of three sitting back at the table they started at, "and some little beetle that crawled itself outta some Noble's ass. I ain't never seen no kid do stuff like that!"

"And there ain't gonna be. Leastways, no normal brat." A man scrubbed his fingers over his five-o'-clock shadow. "And where is he? Wanderin' around our hereabouts, free as ya please."

The four men agreed unanimously and completely without words to figure out where the kid was hiding, and off him before anything creepy started to occur in their lacking diligence. After all, there was no hunters here. No real ones. Those three crackpots probably couldn't slay a snail. Hell, wouldn't it be the day if they were actually minions of the count himself, finally come to collect his blood supply?!

The foursome went outside; the growing downpour did absolutely nothing to damper their thirst for action. However, before they got very far, a hulking shadow fell over them, nearly double in muscle mass than one of the hardened farmers. Frozen like skulking dogs, the farmers tried to avoid the gaze of their visitor in case he was a Noble.

"Hold up," the large stranger said, his teeth showing up white. "Don't go rushing off now. Could be bad for your health."

"H-Hey, beat it!" Zeb snarled. "We're on official business here, protecting what's ours!"

"You ain't gonna protect jack shit if you don't shut up and listen," the larger man said. He drew nearer, stroking the axe at his back, and leered, "I know where the kid is at. Just follow me and we'll make quick work of him if you do exactly as I say."

* * *

The strangers were a hundred or so yards off. D thought that perhaps they were just passing by to make sure nothing was out of place... But this barn was falling apart at the seams each season. He knew that the strangers weren't just passing by either. They were making a straight shot for his barn. Four - no - five men. D moved to the barn doors, and slipped outside, hanging back under the eaves. He hated rain. It dripped onto the rim of his hat.

The first four men ranged around him, and the fifth hung back. Eyes like hellfire beamed at them in the dark. All they saw was the small form of the boy, almost camoflaged against the black walls of the barn. At the sight of those eyes, the men halted and almost lost their courage. But the fifth man called out, "Don't be such women! He's just a kid, remember!"

They remembered what he had done to Carmen Maxwell. But the loathing for anything of vampire origin drove them forward again, armed with short swords or daggers. The boy, his hat tugged down enough to still reveal his eyes, moved not a single muscle.

Then, at ten yards away the men stopped again, hearts in their throats, nearly dead in their tracks. The boy had spoken, and his eyes were two red beaming fires in the dark.

Stop, he had said. A simple word, infused with the blood that flowed through his impure veins. Stop. And they stopped.

The fifth figure trembled with outrage. "What the hell's wrong with you fucking nimrods? GET MOVING! Get him!!"

D recognized the voice of Harvy's friend once raised above the rainfall.

He told the angry farmers, "Go home to your families, now." Four gold coins flew. One to each man. They nearly dropped their weapons to catch them, dreading to lose the precious currency in the muck. And just like that, Zeb and his three croneys tried to hide their shame and crept away, their minds fuzzy and unclear until they reached the threshold of their homes.

"Fancy trick," the axe-wielder said. "But your tricks don't work on me, brat. I'm no tin can; I can take you down like a sapling!" The massive axe whooshed - a wall of rain water rose and splashed the boy before the song of steel answered the axe.

"You're making a mistake," D said, sword pointed level at the man's chest.

"Like hell. I'm just doin' a little favor for all the folks who might have crossed your path, kid. Now don't make this any harder than it has to be!" The pair's gazes fused together, one of them filled with searing hatred, behind which a resolve for protecting his fellow man simmered brilliantly. The other gaze was a grim coldness, the red gone from D's eyes, merely the empty pools of midnight blue.

"What's your name?"

The man sputtered rain from his lips and nose. "What the hell you wanna know that for?!"

"I don't think Zhou wants to give you an unmarked grave. I'll tell him that I was attacked unprovoked... and that I had to defend myself. Your family will never know you died, or that you were killed by a mere child. I won't try to contact them."

The message was phrased harshly, but his voice was gentle, though lacked any human warmth at all. The man trembled from the sound of it. He had no idea what to say, but he soon shook his head.

"Fah! Another damn trick! Enough talking!" The axe went into motion; at that precise moment, or perhaps a little bit before, the boy disappeared. The barn doors behind him shattered, splinters sailing through the air. The boy landed lightly on the long handle of the axe, darted along its length like a cat, and pressed the swordpoint to the warrior's throat.

"Give up. Now." Did the kid almost sound... sad?

The warrior, still unnamed, growled like a bear, his thick hands refusing to let go of the axe grip. But the blade at his throat pressed all the harder as he toiled, until he felt a hot trickle from his throat as well as his trousers. "Son of a bitch!!!" he shouted, jerking the axe from the splintered wreckage of the barn doors and swinging it as hard as he could. It achieved nothing; but the impending collision with the rest of the barn forced D's hand. The sword slid through the man's muscular neck like butter and out the other side, severing bone and spinal cord and tissue like a surgeon. The spurt of hot liquid, however, shocked D. He jerked back and almost clumsily leapt to a puddle, rubbing the blood from his face with rain. The axe finished its journey without the guidance of its owners hands and exploded through the dilapidated barn's wall, leaving a new gaping hole to shore up.

The mercenary crumpled, sputtering blood into the ground, the rain washing its cloying aroma away before D could succumb to bloodthirst. Soon it was quiet; the wreckage stopped creaking and settling. D walked back to the town, to the saloon, and came indoors soaking wet, the sword back in its scabbard. Zhou unwound his hands from one another and let out a breath as he saw him, relief blossoming all over his face.

"I saw them all leave... and Harvy mentioned George might do something."

Harvy, sitting beside Zhou, drooped visibly. "Oh, man... George... you stupid..."

"George? Was that his name?" D wrung out his hat before going any further, and then joined them at the table.

Zhou shut his eyes and exhaled meditatively. "...What about the farmers?"

"I used--" Hesitant, D clipped his words gently. "They're home, safe. I didn't fight them. They were unhappy for losing, so I returned some money to them and told them to go home. They seemed happy enough to listen."

"I must apologize," Zhou explained with a sadness in one eye. "You see, it's hard to screen all of our workers diligently. I... There really is no excuse."

"It has nothing to do with your guards." D squeezed the rain from one corner of his cloak and wiped blood from his nose. "The farmers know I'm not like them. All will know. It is not magic but science. I make them feel fear wherever I go."

Zhou began to speak, rushing to reassure the youngster, but there again was that boundless unmeasurable depth to his very being that permitted no one to speak. It was as if anyone who could not think of something deep and meaningful to say, they may as well stay silent. Zhou gave up and sighed, draining the last of his water in his cup.

Harvy was still busy mourning the man. "We've gotta give George a proper burial in the morning... you know?"

"If there's anything left of him," D said, trying to sound gentle.

Harvy gave a low grieving moan and dropped his forehead to the table. "You! How can you say that?"

"There are monsters out there in the rain. I can hear them. I doubt that they'd let George alone out of respect for the dead. His body is there. Just know that his death was his own fault. I'd rather not wait any longer than we have to. Zhou?"

"Yes?"

"Did anyone join us to kill the Count?"

Zhou winced, but it seemed only D was not afraid now to mention his father's status, nor openly advertise the task they pursued. "Four men. Strong, willing, though not sure if they are as capable as they are headstrong."

"It's better than nothing... I suppose..." D closed his hands into fists and laid them on the table. Zhou reached over to open them.

"Don't keep your energy closed," he said quietly. "Leave it open, always. It will poison you."

D looked at his hands, nodding as he understood. He laid his hands flat against the table, and stared at his pointed nails. He pulled his sleeves down, and made sure no one would see them.

There was a great peal of thunder; D was exhausted from the rain, and slowly sunk down with his back to the wall in his chair, close by Zhou, somehow finding greater comfort being close to the man who had been his friend.


	9. Temptation

Author's Notes: WHEWWW. I don't like this chapter at all. Something about this whole fic rings of bittersweet death. DEATH EVERYWHERE. Also, I think I should have written it independently from the "The Storm", rather than try to mix the two together. But, oh well. Se la vie! I guess?

* * *

**A Dhampir Story  
****Chapter IX**

After a misty morning, D, Zhou and Harvy went out to look for George. At the sight where the brief and desperate battle took place, there was nothing of George but his weapon, bones, and scraps of meat and cloth. D did not say so, therefore no one could say whether he felt shameful toward abandoning his body. As usual his stone-like, perfect face did not express anything but utter apathy, as if he were a living statue.

At Harvy's insistence, they held a ceremony and buried the man in the public graveyard, with blessings from the local priest and some straggly wildflowers for his grave from Harvy. As the big man dropped them into the grave with the deceased, D looked more closely at Harvy and realized he did not know the man at all. He had not even known George, who had probably meant nothing more than to protect his fellow men from a percieved threat. Almost all dhampirs' lives ended tragically with those around them, who were unfortunate to feed their unnatural hunger for the taste of blood. Harvy shed silent tears which he did not do anything to hide.

As they left the sight, the boy followed Harvy for a few steps and said, "I'm sorry," to get his attention. D looked down at his feet when Harvy turned, surprised as hell but his spear ready - it seemed the instincts of a Frontiersman were with him even in the cemetary, so close to death's pall.

"Oh. S'just you." Harvy relaxed. Not by much, but more than D thought he would have under the bleak circumstances. "What you got to apologize for? I told you George was a big stupid man. Always thinkin' with his heart rather than his head." The man paused, having gotten animated a little and his voice loud. Finally he put his spear point first into the ground just outside the cemetary fence, and knelt down.

Harvy said, "Listen. I ain't never told nobody this. I dunno why I'm tellin' you, you're just a kid and what's more--" He pursed his lips. "I... I never told that man I loved him. Hell, he would've laughed me straight into Hell for being a sinner. Do you understand?"

Surprised, D answered, "Of course."

"But I did love him, admired him in a fucked up sorta way." Harvy's eyes, which were a deep healthy brown that likened D's memory to forest bark, glistened with a healthy glow. "I knew his faults and his strengths down to the last. I can't go on wishing I'd've had the brass balls to come out and say it. But don't you go apologizing all over the place like this. It don't suit you. George never done right by you, and for that, I'll have to apologize on his behalf on account o' he can't speak for himself right now." Harvy grinned as if he could summon George's very explosive response to the words he spoke. "If he hadn't died by your hand, he would have lost his head to some other rapscallion son of a bitch in a pointless scrap."

"If I had given him another change to stop--"

"Now cut it out!" And then Harvy, who never raised a hand against a child, smacked D firmly over the head without much displacing his hat. "This here is the Frontier, if you haven't noticed. It isn't any ideal paradise for anyone. In a perfect world, everyone would be happily pickin' flowers and singing songs and drinking themselves to oblivion. Some would argue otherwise but... alright, now." He sighed. "Talking is making me tired. I'll get to the point. I'll follow you straight to that Noble's throne. You're crazy and maybe a liar, but it doesn't matter to me. You're a good kid, and I know you wouldn't've killed George without any good cause."

D didn't know what else to say. His face hurt a bit though. "Thank you, Harvy."

The spearman gave a firm nod, and gripped the roughly hewn spear to turn and walk to the waiting horses, car and wagon. Zhou was nowhere to be found.

Zhou was holding a private ceremony at the place where George had fallen. The Easterner gave him no acknowledgment but continued the ritual. The aromatic incense he burned and the small charm dangling in the doorway of the barn jingled with lethargic harmony made the dhampir hold back, though he did not know if there was some holy property in the objects or his respect for Zhou's ways which kept him at bay. Zhou spoke the native tongue of his homeland, phrases at once rhythmic but odd to hear, as the words were almost sung rather than spoken.

In a few minutes, as the wind rolled over the rejuvenated hills and brought the smell of young grass shoots to D's awakening senses, Zhou stood up from the ground, bowed to the incense and walked backwards until he was at D's side.

"What were you doing?" D asked, watching the incense burn more, the ribbons of smoke wriggling like struggling serpents in the brisk morning breeze.

The Easterner gravely nodded to the jingling bells, which dangled with a strip of cloth with unfamiliar characters written on it. "For his spirit not to linger here. He was a very vengeful man and such men spawn demons if their hatred is left to resonate with the black mists the Nobles left behind. I was praying for his spirit to be guided toward forgiveness and purity. That is the least I can do for now. But we must press on."

As they walked back across the damp earth, the young boy continued with questions, envigorated by the unfamiliarity of the ritual. "Is that not what priests do? Does every person perform that ritual? What kind of incense do you use?"

"You are insatiable as ever!" Zhou laughed, and climbed onto a horse, watching D effortlessly make the journey from ground to stirrup to saddle before he continued. "I will tell you all, if you promise to keep a watchful eye. The rain will surely bring its share of monsters, day or night. I surely hope our new foundling warriors will be able to defend themselves."

"It will be the stringent test to weed out the... weak ones. I'm sorry to sound so cruel, Zhou."

"No. You're right."

The group rode furiously, the town dwindling. The plan was to gather as many capable hunters as possible before storming the Vampire King's domain. It was going to be a daunting task, both gathering willing suicidal maniacs and the seige. However, not a single night passed that D did not dream of his father's evil visits to torment Rhea, nor worry that it was all in vain. The most horrifying aspect of their task was that, no matter what happened to Rhea, the plan would not end with her death. With that axe hovering over his head, he could only imagine what was going through Zhou's heart as he rode far and fast from her.

------

As days passed, towns came and went... and where the hunters stopped, a similiar tragedy occured. Someone breathed the word 'dhampir' every time and someone, if not the entire town they holed up in, made an attempt on D's life. Their stays did not extend more than a couple of nights. The young dhampir had to become the most adept at seeing through assassination plot after assassination plot. His heart became hardened at every quick friendship he made, for the next day, he saw that person's face in the angry mob who had come to slay him.

Zhou could not talk to D in the month after the fourth town. The boy was inconsolably isolating himself from the group of hunters, which was depressingly small. The boy known as Deron became a wall of ice that was inconcievable to melt. Coldness draped the growing youth in a shroud of spiky indifference. None of the humans dared go near him. He, like so few others, had survived death after a near terrifying experience after a surprise attack had driven a wooden spike through his left rib cage rather than his chest. After a violent infusion of pig and horse blood, for the dying boy refused the blood offered by Zhou, the boy recovered painfully and slowly.

Even Harvy, who seemed to accept the fact that he was a dhampir better than anyone, could not approach D. He knew no way to make the kid feel better.

The days unraveled into weeks, then a couple of years. Their journey carried them far, beneath rolling skies that boomed with thunder, the wings of avions, and scorched the earth with unbearable sunlight. Under the constant strain, D began to develop a much tougher exterior, and could deal with the sun for longer and longer periods of day. It was certainly a decent change from having to ride for hours and hours in the stuffy wagon.

But it was not all travel and sight-seeing. They slayed vampires and monsters, devouring hundreds of miles in a path of extermination. The slayings acted as a perfect tool for crafting the roughened men into hardened warriors who cared for no one. They killed the Nobility for money and split the spoils to fill their bellies. With their notoreity came a crippling fear.With summer of the second year digging its last talon into the warm days and chilly nights, a group of thirty men led by an Easterner and a dhampir child rode through another town. Their numbers impressed the folks there, who successfully harvested beef from genetically altered cattle that could grow back their flesh hacked from their bodies within seconds, painless and carefree. They brought food, warriors hardened by experience, and a message: join them and divulge the riches of the Vampire King's fortress. It was a hell of a lot better than saying, "We're gonna go try to kill the bastard; why don't you join us?"

The young dhampir rode on horseback in front of Zhou, so the first individual the townspeople saw was a young, serious-faced young man around fourteen years old wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Many minds struggled with the beauty and the immense morose that accompanied it. The procession of hunters felt like a funeral march rather than a cheerful entrance of welcomed hunters.

Zhou hurried his horse along to stand alongside D's. A stable boy rushed out with the innkeep and they spoke with Zhou, who arranged to have them all sleep in the Inn and whatever beds were empty for the night - and at such a bargain price that it would have been considered a steal. But because the thirty horseman were hunters of the highest caliber, they were accorded special privileges that others of like-minded grouping habits would not be treated to.

In particular, the accomodations included what women wanted to bed them. Quite a few eyes watched the youth as he dismounted, trying to guage his age - not that too many young attractive men were "too young" for them. Their eyes were hazed with a dangerous kind of fog, lust warm and tingling throughout their bodies at the very sight of him. It was not D's intent to make them feel that way. It was purely the way he was, and there was nothing he could really do to stop them from having that flambouyant reaction.

Zhou sighed at the state of the girls and led D to the bar of the local watering hole. The pair sat in companionable silence, though something was deeply troubling the young dhampir. As if immune to the frigid youngster's attitude, Zhou nudged his shoulder. "Speak to me."

"I don't have anything to say."

"You have something on your mind." The wise smile formed on his lips, and he stroked his glass of water. "I think I know."

"I think it's almost time we go back, Zhou." His eyes followed the group of women being herded upstairs by some of their hunters. "I think we're as close to meeting our quota as we can once we're through with this town. I want... I would like to go home. Rhea's last letter was very short. Her only words were, 'I'm fine, and so are the children. Please stay safe.'"

"If that is what you desire, we'll return as soon as we've finished recruiting here. We'll check on the orphanage, and then it's a straight shot to the Count's lands. Are you terrified of going back there?"

D looked scared. Although he was fairly brave and had some experience out in the world, he was still terrified. His close shaves with death did not make him any more brave than any other fourteen year old boy. "I'm more terrified of what that monster can do than anything else in this world."

"Agreed," Zhou said softly, and there was almost a hint of fear in his one eye as well. He gave his water one final swig, before he added, "Although I can see no better adversary than you, my boy. You are strong and willful in your own silent way. He must be just as terrified of you, to have much of his strength and almost none of his usual weaknesses."

"I don't think a single man will survive just getting to the castle," D said. "And I don't think anyone will be able to argue with me. These men are very brave, or very stupid. I don't want them... to die in vain. So many people die... and so few that deserve life survive."

"But to have lived is in itself a blessing." Zhou stroked D's shoulder and then gave it a solid pat. "Go upstairs and go to bed. Try not to let the men bother you if they, er, become boisterous."

D nodded, and sleep was indeed a factor. He had not slept in five or six days, but that was not because he was kept awake, but because he simply was not tired. It seemed as he aged, the less sleep he really needed. But he was still growing, with plenty more growing to do, and he needed proper rest like any human child should.

Upstairs was a room prepared for him. The place was pretty clean, but there were mice in the walls that only came out when food was really available. Luckily, his room had no food at all. The bed was so out of date but the blankets never looked more welcome. He melted into the bed, knocked his hat off to the floor and then reached to pick it up again. He couldn't be bothered to take off his boots or clothes. The pillow smelled like clean soap rather than animal hide, which was enough to lull him into a sense of security that he often lacked.

But after two years of being chased out of town by angry mobs, he learned to sleep with one eye open, so to speak.

While one half of his brain regained some energy, the other was still perpetually awake, listening. Waiting, expectantly, for the tell-tale click of a gun or whine of a steel weapon leaving its sheath. It was customary. It was routine, and sadly, D almost couldn't sleep if someone didn't come try to kill him.

The night quickly wore on into very early morning. He woke as expected, though not to the sound of a blade or a firearm being cocked to blow his brains out. It was light footsteps. From lessons with Zhou, they were those of a woman. This did not necessarily secure him. Maybe it was one of the girls returning from a brief romp with one of the hunter's in their party. But the footsteps grew louder and stopped at his bedroom door.

He waited. The door creaked open. The stranger tiptoed inside, breathing halted for fear of sounding too loud. When she finally exhaled, he opened his eyes in the dark and watched her approach. Unarmed. Helpless. She gazed at him with a powerful longing that sent a wave of heat through him.

Suddenly she bent close and kissed him, her silken hands pulling open his vest collar and cloak. Not to breach that forbidden territory of his throat, but to move her lips to his chest. He trembled, shocked, sick with himself for letting her even get close enough to smell her perfume.

"Get away," he choked. He found his voice somewhere in the far back of his throat, and it was more like a growl. "Get away from me."

The girl not really pulled away, but leapt back with a breathtaking grace, landing in the middle of the floor in a crouch. Her eyes flashed a deep crimson before she smiled, licking her full lips. She could not be older than a child, but she had a woman's seduction.

"I've got a message for you," she said, "and only you. An old friend waits for you beyond the road. If you don't come meet him within the hour, we'll raze this town to the ground... and the Easterner will be the first to burn in the hungry flames. Understand?"

The moment was immersed in an air of frigid cold, spreading through the very floor boards. The girl trembled, and her power over D wavered and then, all once, snapped. D disappeared; there was a single thin flash of white and a line of crimson dripped from the girl's forehead down to her chin. She grabbed her face and screamed, blood exploding from her mouth as she disappeared, retreating from the figure standing directly in front of her, sword poised for a second strike. The girl jerked backward again, holding her face to keep one half of her head connected to the other, as much as convey a sense of helplessness.

"You'll die," she snarled, her face twisted in half by fury and pain. "You'll die for what you've done to me today!" With that, she turned and vanished back out the door, spattering blood all over the walls and floor as she did so. The simple fact that her entire skull was bisected and she was still moving about with some normalcy would have given a hardened warrior something to worry about.

Bloodscent permeated his pillow. Blood had poured from her and saturated everything from this room all the way down the hall. Flicking gore from his blade, he returned it to its sheath and walked to the door. The sight of red, like an on-going signature all the way along the walls and doors, inspired such a horrible loathing and hunger that he suddenly fell to the floor where more of the red stuff had fallen. His nose was inches from it, and his mouth opened but a little. Would anyone stumble upon this bizarre, terrifying portrait, they would lose themselves with absolute fear. The boy's fangs gleamed brightly, pearly white as if never stained by the blood of mortals - except Zhou's. His eyes were brighter now than coal red, pulsing with an undeniable demonic gleam.

Another figure entered the hallway in a hurry. The sound of the blade must have woken him. It was none other than Zhou, his hand on the hilt of his own blade.

D was knelt with his face toward the floor as if he were worshipping something, praying, but what a dark prayer it must be to be praying at blood on the floor.

"D?" Zhou lifted his hand from the blade and reached for something else in a pouch at his side. His gaze was hard. He could see in the light from the window that every fiber of the young man was trembling with the monumental effort to keep away from the blood on the floor, glistening, still warm, and fresh.

What Zhou took from that pouch at his side was so small it could fit into his hand. But his next movement was so fast that no one could have caught sight of it, if they were there to watch. The object in his hand flew so fast that it made a whistle, and stuck in D's left shoulder, knocking him upright and forcing him away from the blood.

And D was fine. The red went out of his eyes, slowly and painfully, and he seemed to recover as if waking from a nightmare. He was sweating and trembling still, but the object in his shoulder fell out and struck the floor with a metal sound. It was a crucifix.


	10. Encounter of the Beast Men

**Author's Notes:** This is a rough-cut version because my mom is fairly ill and it's hard to concentrate on pretty much anything. But I have to write, or I'll go crazy... so I'm doing a mass sort of update here... even if this is kind of rough. So be patient with me. I'm really sorry... I've just been going through a lot...

* * *

**A Dhampir Story  
****Chapter X**

Blood permeated everything; he swam through a cloud of its smell, drowning in stomach aching sickness. But he couldn't move his limbs; he had no sense of direction, no sense of what had happened yet. Panic was his enemy now. If he panicked, anyone who stepped out into the corridor would see D and the blood and put two of them together for an easy solution. It was still very early morning, the moon high, its indifferent glow casting a spotlight on the young figure stupefied against the wall on the floor.

The other figure to this scene regrettably had no face in the shadow by the frail moon. But his silhouette was familiar - slender, muscular and tall. He walked toward the young man on the floor and crouched, slowly picking up the object that had been thrown at the dhampir, and pocketing it out of sight casually, as if he'd only dropped it there a second ago. "Get up. You can move now, can't you?"

D stood too suddenly and leaned against the wall. His head hurt badly, and he felt like his mouth was full of prickly, dry cotton. That in turn made his stomach feel rebellious. He swallowed, looking more closely at the man's face. He focused, and the night's shadows were dispelled by his sight. It was only Zhou! But what had happened to make him so paralyzed?

"You must control your hunger," Zhou said softly. "It will only grow that much more powerful as you follow through puberty. Given time and methods to ignore it, you may yet be able to resist it even if it is right under your nose."

D trembled. He had almost... been utterly under the seductive spell of that red stuff. Blood. He closed his eyes, reaching out for his mentor. "Get me away from here."

A few minutes outdoors in the night disturbed only by the guards put in place and the animals crying in the far hills did the boy some good. The pain went out of him, and he relaxed against a hitching post meant for horses. A cool, fresh wind swooned from the northeast, drying the sweat on his fevered skin; the grass and trees whispered amongst themselves over rumors occuring deep beneath their boughs. Sighing, the breeze carried itself out at the other end of the street. Guards walked slowly around, their inclination for sleep making them see things on the wind that were phantasms of exhaustion.

Zhou stood with his weight on one leg, angular face frowning in concern. He was not in the least angry with D. Or even afraid. He wanted to bring the boy into his arms and crush him tight and promise he would someday be normal, that this was all a phase... but it would be lies, and D deserved better than lies.

"I have to go," D informed him coldly. "Don't follow me."

"What?" Zhou was about to offer D lessons in the most important part of his teachings - to resist the call of blood. "But D... you haven't done anything wrong yet. Why must you go?"

"It's important. But I'll come back. I'm wasting time here." With a flash, he was gone.

In the stable, the smell of horses and hay and leather further diminished the memory of the consuming smell of vitae. In less than four minutes he had crossed the street and headed toward the livening wood alone, a black silhouette devoured by the trees. Zhou watched from afar with his wrinkled brow furrowed, his single eye gleaming.

* * *

He did not care particularly about the town. But he did care about the hunters - more specifically the purpose they served for getting rid of his father. Whether D realized how cold and callous a picture these thoughts made him, he did not care. They were his and his alone; he was wont to phrase his thoughts more carefully when surrounded by the burly bunch.

Still he cared very much, deeply and honestly, for Zhou - who was his father more than anyone else in the world could say. He better suited the role of teacher and mentor and everything he had done was for D's benefit.

The forest welcomed him with silence. Even the messenger whose face he had cut was there with another individual. He was tall and quiet, with a brooding mouth and a severe scowl.

"So you have come. Good. Our lord awaits." Thus said the man. The woman seemed fine now, though she had a look of pure black malice reserved for D. That all changed when she gazed upon her male companion. It was devotion and maybe a hazy lust for the figure of the man.

Whatever lord awaited, D would go to meet him. He quietly picked his way straight over difficult paths, littered with rocks, keeping his eyes glued on the two figures as they moved together ahead of him. But his limbs were wide awake and prepared for any sort of ambush. The sound of water was distant now, but growing louder.

The trees thickened, suffocating. It became so stifling it would have made an impossible trek for a human. D found it marginally easy to traverse the thicket, moving this way and that, ducking when he had to, but it was all graceful. And his eyes that rivaled an eagle's stayed fixed on the woman and her man. Water crashed to his left over rocks, though a wall of shrubery blocked him from viewing the spectacular glitter of moonlight on the river.

"Hold," the man said, stopping ten yards ahead. He motioned to the shadows, and half a dozen figures shifted into view - all of them ranging in race and color, but fairly uniform in size. They were huge creatures, with shaved heads and tattooed bodies. They had some human features; most others were monstrous. D stopped at this clearing and felt them draw near... but when his sword was in hand he was apprehended by one beast he hadn't heard until it was too late. Perhaps using the roar of the nearby river to mask sound had been strategy rather than happy accident.

His body was hoisted - these were monsters, not just ordinary humans with all muscle and no means to move it.

The half-beasts pulled D toward the end of the river, where, before a roaring waterfall that emptied into the vortex of frigid liquid and debris whirling dizzyingly. It was about half an acre wide, and several feet deep. At one end, the eddying crash emptied into the pool hundreds of feet at the bottom.

The trees naturally cleared away alongside the rocky shore; it was here that a fire was built high, roaring with its opposing element of water. D's unblinking eyes stung as he felt the heat of the flames arch toward the heavens, a column of burning. D's heart was pounding to a different beat now. It was tangible and familiar fear. The only question was which he feared the most: engulfing fire, or choking water?

D lifted his eyes toward a few men standing near the edge of the swirling, eddying abyss. One of them wore a short, time-worn cloak with a thick hood. The man gave D a cursory glance, moving his head toward him just a little, before the men dumped the young man right at his feet. They reached their hands to remove his sword... and then leaped away, howling gutterally for the pain caused by the sudden thorns sticking out from their hands and arms. At first glance, they look like they'd been stuck with a common porcupine. D clenched his teeth behind his beautiful lips and said nothing, but prepared himself to attack again if he had to. His fingers closed on the needles of wood without the captors noticing.

"Clever," the hooded man noted with a sibillant quality to his words. His serpentine eyes widened. "Very impressive."

D didn't ask any of the obvious questions. He would find his answers soon, at least before he died. He put a lid on his emotions, and shifted to be more comfortable. More beasts moved from the trees without a sound and grabbed D again, and this time successfully removed his sword; the hooded man moved close enough for light to reveal some of his features. D saw more due to his sight; an aquiline nose, a thin-lipped mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth. He was totally bald, no hair at all on his head. However, rows of scales grew in between patches of empty, tanned scalp.

Circling around them were the malformed creatures whose human mothers mated with monstrous figures. D's eyes couldn't tear away from the very familiar face just inches before his own, swallowing his field of vision.

"Do you recognize this face?" He reached for D, and snatched him by the collar of his shirt, and lifted him up face to face. "How about now? _Sucker_?"

If D was surprised, he failed to show it. Instead he pursed his lips and gazed at him with chillingly devoid eyes; it was as if rather than becoming angry or afraid, D retreated deep into a place where no one else existed in that moment save himself and the snake boy from his past. A small tear trickled from his left eye, but twinkled too quickly into oblivion to be noticed by the snake boy.

"Tch! Those same old stupid eyes." The same insatiable anger rippled through the now-older Vice's frame, and it resulted in him shaking the young dhampir furiously. "Go ahead, sucker, and say my name!"

"I'm glad you're well, Vice," D replied softly, so only he could hear. He saw the snake-like pupils narrow into black slits, drowning in a sea of sickly yellow. Then the snake man flipped D's hat off with one swift motion and tossed it aside; it had fallen dangerously close to the flames of the roaring bonfire.

A split-second of non-attentiveness allowed D a second to wriggle out of his cloak and disappear through a mass of half-beasts who felt as wide as trees; people whose heritage varied from big-horned sheep to the hungry wolf. All of them made a collective noise, horrible in its similar ring of bloodlust, carnivorous or not. Quick to the punch, the swift Vice caught up to D who had been harried by two massive wolf-men; he had not traveled very far. The clamor of fire, water, and beasts was deafening. D chanced to let his wood needles fly; their contact resulted in more infuriated roaring. Blood sprouted from punctured arteries and speckled the ground glittering red. But the snake man was beyond pain, beyond the simple suffering of physical hurts. He leapt on D with needles sticking from all over his face.

The pair tumbled toward the frothing water's edge, end-over-end, jamming each other with knees, elbows and kicking feet. Was D counting on the fading hope he could suffer the torment of moving water, and swim to the other side if he fell in? Either way, he was in bad shape. He was close to the water to feel it dragging his strength away. There were a number of large rocks washed up by the furtive current. D put up a righteous struggle, growling as his eyes flamed up to their red. It put anything in the Frontier ill at ease to see that red glow. However, only revenge was on the snake man's mind; he could not foresee his own doom even if it was staring him in the face at that very moment.

Vice reached for the nearest rock, while he laid sprawled on top of the other young man. He was bigger, older! He surely had the advantage, and a weapon, so he smashed the rock as hard he could over the boy's skull. He repeated the attack again and again, his own lips pulled back in a grimace of sure, unapologetic rage.

D's body went utterly limp for a moment. He counted his own wild heartbeats before reaching up and calmly snatching the rock from Vice's hand and returning it to his face with the full force of his strength. It was not enough to kill him, but there was indeed a shower of blood from the serpent nostrils like two red faucets turned on. Vice flew back away in shock, unable to connect the knowledge of having the rock in his hand one second, and the next having his face smashed flat by the same rock which had alternatively switched hands.

D flung the rock into the swirling waters and wiped blood from him. As before in that soaked corridor, his heart thumped twice as hard when he smelled the blood. And just as hard thumped the desire to see if it tasted as good as its cloying aroma. He forgot about Vice, the horrible beast men; one taste of this magical stuff and he would be free, free of pain and loneliness... for surely there were others, just like him, somewhere, and they'd love him just the same when Zhou realized he really was just another monster. His head ached, the world seemed to revolve around the mass of water crashing chaotically into oblivion, and the only thing he could think of to do was lick the blood from his fingers.

And then Vice collided against the dhampir boy with a slightly less impressive roar of anger than before. He put his whole weight against him and it was over with in a violent splash. D's vision went crystalline clear as the shock of water wakened him from the lullaby of blood. He felt Vice clawing his face; he breathed in suddenly and his lungs felt like they had detonated. He struggled and pushed the older man away, but his arms felt as if they were made of solid lead to a simple mortal man.

The current took them over the falls too soon for D to attempt to strategize anything. The falls carried them over, and then he was aloft on a cloud of cold, frigid water, in his mouth, eyes, and ears. Vice was falling somewhere beside him... closer to the wall of rock that made up the cliff the water crumbled down. As more layers of stone jutted out, the more likely Vice was of striking one and breaking several bones - perhaps even dying. But the water came up fast and swallowed them again, eleviating D's sense of misdirection and tearing Vice away as the undertow pulled the snake man from sight. The dhampir was sluggishly making his way toward what he believed to be land, when his hand bumped against the stone-laden shore. He vomited a gout of sour-tasting water immediately, and then rolled onto his back, then stomach, then back again, until only his fingertips were being lapped by the breaking waves. He laid there, his chest rising and falling heavily.

He was alone for now. He felt as if he had broken everything, every bone, every muscle battered by the cold. Straining his neck, he looked at the forest to his right while his teeth chattered.

The sun was rising soon. A golden speck gleamed like a ring beneath sand through the trees. He blinked and sat up, wheezing. His hands dug in for hand-holds as the ground sloped dramatically upward. He wouldn't survive the dawn like this - he had to go up and dig for his life.

He pushed his way through ferns into the shade, under trees, and fumbled for something hard to dig with. He found a jagged looking stick, which proved too weak and crumbled as he attacked the earth with it. With nothing else close at hand he simply dug with his hands, tearing up green plants and tossing them aside carelessly, roots snapping and teeth chattering the only sounds above the rush of the falls.

He heard Eili's voice in a far away memory: _"You've got to pretend to be dead so the trolls don't eat you!"_

He smiled and grit his teeth, digging faster, until he couldn't think straight, and dumped himself in a sizable hole, and dragged as much dirt as he could over him. But it was too much to do it all, and he had to be at peace with what he could accomplish. His lids weighted down by exhaustion, he curled into the grave, and like his dark kin, waited for the night.

The sun swung around on its path among other stars; it blazed cheerfully, burning off the dew and mist that filled the air. The heat would be phenomenal, the clouds fleeing every horizon; but there was a small form nestled beneath a thick canopy that would not suffer much from its rays. Curious animals moved toward D; ferocious monsters hovered nearby, tempted by the smell of a body, and aroused by the sight of one so harmless. And yet there seemed to be an invisible perimeter keeping the creatures, large and small, at bay. The stink of Nobility was strong, his aura great even in his rest. His young face framed by thick, dark strands of hair, dried in the air, exuded an air of innocence even despite his predicament.


	11. Astri the Vengeful

Author's Notes: Well, well! Lookit. I finally got around to finding time to write. I feel happier too, because I was beginning I'd been forgotten. I really need to not start four stories at one time!! They really just sort of built up. Ha. All right, enough talk. Read, readers!

**A Dhampir Story  
****Chapter XI**

Like a spilled cup over a watercolor painting, colors from another palette seeped through the crimson-orange-pink of sunset and stained it black. When this happened, the wings of night swallowed up the sky, and gave birth to a round, full moon gleaming like a freshly minted coin in the late autumn sky. It took on an orange hue where it hovered at the horizon. Nocturnal beings slid into existence and a black mound of freshly turned earth remained largely undisturbed; the shadows closed in, developing hungry eyes as they picked up traces of something not-quite-alive beneath the earth. Then they saw the uncanny beauty laying with his face upturned toward the stars. The boughs above swayed and whispered as if placing this mystery under the deepest of discussion. A pair of horns rose and dipped - a hoofed creature of some kind, not to be mistaken for a common deer, had smelled the flesh of something living and was nosing its way through the foliage to find the source, then froze as if caught in the headlights of a freight train. Beings that the Nobility had bred for sport, beauty, and lethal intent used the cover of darkness to explore and continue their existence by any means they possessed.

But the young teenager beneath the earth did not open his eyes. In fact, a traveler who could have passed him by would have swore he wasn't even breathing. As they caught sight of the boy, the monstrous deer's eyes took on a luridly green glow, with the teeth to tear into a creature's flesh without hesitation. However, it's ferocity seemed to drain away, sapped by the chilling aura that surrounded the creature it had sniffed out.

One slender hand moved, and the deer fled with a soft hushed whisper of leaves in the verdant darkness. Other creatures knew instinctively to stay farther away, armed with the knowledge that this was not a meal easily devoured; even unarmed, a dhampir could pose a serious threat to most monsters of lesser lineage. He slid his hands up to his chest and began to scoop handfuls of dirt off of him. His lips pursed while he worked, he was unearthed from his temporary grave within a minute or two, and he stepped out of the small grave with a slight tremble. His blue eyes took in his situation, then moved listlessly toward the stars, and found his point. Was he thinking about going back to town? Or was there something on the air that called to him more urgently?

Unarmed and alone, he picked his way across the forest floor, a veritable phantom. His clothes still hung limply and ragged with a modicum of grace to his light step, his arm moving to brush aside branches with such smoothness that one would think he was conducting a philharmonic.

The moon swung into view again, less full than it was the night before. In the darkness, D selected out blocks of shadows harmlessly vanishing into the distance. Nothing could touch this child of the Nobility no matter how tempting an unarmed morsel he would be. Once, D stopped beside a tree, and reached up to pull a branch down. He snapped it off at the trunk and moved his fingertips over the branch; bits of twigs and bark dropped to the ground at his feet. He had no small knife. What he was doing was cutting off excess twigs with his pointed fingernails. The bizarre action was followed with him taking the mostly-stranch length of wood and cutting it into mostly equal lengths almost perfectly with his hands. He leaned a bunch of them against the trunk. One at a time, he began using his nails to sharpen the wood needles into a lethal point, occasionally blowing away sawdust.

In thirty minutes, he had created ten wooden needles. Leaving the small pile of sawdust behind, he continued into the darkness, placing in his mouth his thumb, which was sore from doing the work of a knife.

As the sound of the river softened, the species of tree began to change. A bizarre thing happened, as if D had crossed into another realm entirely, because tall bamboo rose about him en masse in a very clear straight line which marked his pathway to a clearing. The night looked more green than blue now, and blossoms from a sakura tree in the clearing danced to the ground in a melancholy manner. Under the tree, pearlescent skin glowing, a female in nude repose sat with her arms crossed over her breasts and her hands grasping her shoulders delicately; her hair was as silver as liquid mercury, falling straight down across her face. As soon as D laid eyes on her, he immediately recieved a dizzying impression that she was both there, yet did not exist at all; he was staring at her, saw every mercurean strand as clear as if he were only inches away.

He shut his eyes once, and thought, _It's a trap. Someone or something is in my mind._

When his baleful blue eyes peered open again, another figure dominated his field of vision. Genderless but fully equipped with an androgynous beauty, the being had almond-shaped eyes, a generous smile, and long, dark chocolate hair that fell in waves to a chiseled derriere. Robed in a simple cloth covering the front of his loins, the humanoid slowly raised slender hands to either side, palms open and empty, bare feet set firmly among the fallen petals that were so pale, they were nearly white.

"What do you want?" D asked; by his tone, he sounded plainly curious.

"I was only waiting," the individual said, voice light and melodic. It was very nearly a song. "I dreamed of you. Waiting here, for years, to give you this." Long lashes blinked; even a man would not hesitate to find this being utterly desirable, offering something much more than a simple bout of hot sex. It gave D a longing stare, lips parted, then lifted its hands to its curving neck. There was a brief silver flash between two delicate fingers and the skin, and a tiny rivulet followed the path of modest musculature, pooling at a collar bone, then overflowing over a gently sloping breast that could have also been muscle.

A frigid silence settled between them. Not a single petal fell then. D's eyes took on a guttering, lurid red gleam. His lips firmly closed, he gazed nonchalantly at the other, who swooned softly and bent its neck to one side in brutally erotic submission, a horrifying offer painting a web-like path over a flat, slightly toned abdomen the color of poppy. The cut had been quite shallow, yet the blood kept running down, macabre, inviting, repulsive. The sense of conflicting reality and dream continued on, battling one another, and occasionally D felt a dizzying euphoria, a loss of a sense of time. His hands moved, his fingers shifting slightly and finally growing still. His eyes locked on the proferred redness pumping from the pale throat, which undulated with the constant beating of an eternal heart.

"Don't you want it?" gasped the rose lips, tender as roses. "Take it. I exist only for the night children, you know. It's my purpose."

The temptation was growing; blood just kept trickling in a ridiculous amount until it spread across the top of the cloth covering the loins, and staining first in a clear outline of male genitalia. An unreadable change in D's expression occured once, and finally D stepped forward. Then took another step, the knuckles of his hands turning white as he moved. Finally he came to halt within arm's reach of the male, who stood trembling with expectancy.

"Please..."

D's eyes narrowed, and the red strengthened. A needle protruded from the male's hand when he reached out to touch the dhampir. A cry of pain sang from the slave's lips, and he moved back, cradling the hand, sadness in those clear grey eyes. The dhampir D readied another needle.

First, D asked again, "What do you want?"

"Please," the man whispered, head bowed low. "I meant no insult. If I'm not good enough for you, then please let me go. Spare me..."

"You're not real." And more needles sang out in a high-pitched chorus, each finding a point in the man's body. D's hat covered his eyes and his lips were still firmly closed, though his jaw muscles bulged with the power of clenching them. The blood everywhere made him dizzy with an alien want, though it felt perfectly natural to want to crouch down and lap the blood from the fallen petals, sweetness upon sweetness. But the man had already fallen back onto the petals, writhing with pain, tears of anguish pooling in his ears and hair. His naked form vanished in the haze of bloodlust D fought and he couldn't concentrate any longer. He clenched his hands and moved them toward his face as if he could claw the desire away.

Somehow, the look in D's eyes changed; a chill coldness clamped tightly over his vision. The air took on a hard blue tint; even the man seemed to freeze as the icy gaze of the youthful hunter. Finally, the tension in the air seemed to reach a threshold and snapped, bringing everything into a warm, real clarity. Once again D stood before the woman sitting beneath the tree, though her head was tilted up, a look of anger and amusement embattled on her expression. Her eyes were the same silver hue as her hair and sparkling nude skin. Her lips moved.

"You're so strong. I was sure I had you."

D was standing perfectly straight once more. The blood smell was gone and his heart which had been hammering for so long went still entirely. A cold look washed over the woman, who quivered and gasped.

"Enough," the young man uttered, and it was like the bell of midnight, the smack of an axe on a chopping block. He raised his left hand.

"Wait." The woman looked down, and moved her hands among the petals that had fallen. They were beautiful and glistening, though many of them wilted and turned a charred brown even as he watched. "It was a test... a small test. All that would have happened if you had taken the blood was sleep for several months."

"What are you doing out here?"

"I am a vengeful ghost," the woman replied, her skin gleaming as she lifted her head again and her arms above her head. Her hands were filled with the petals she had gathered at her feet. She let them fall and they regained their vigorous bright hue before dying again upon touching the earth. "I am bound to this grove, to moulder here forever. My only comfort is luring the foolish Nobility who come to sip of blood. My only real defense is my psychic attacks, which you defeated."

D looked to consider her words, as if weighing the truth of them. Then he turned to leave, though the aura he gave off was still choking the warmth from the grove. The woman reached out desperately, horrorified that she was going to lose her only guest in perhaps decades. "Wait! Please. Who are you? Why are you in this forest?"

"I fell in the river and I'm lost." He continued walking.

The woman writhed, and stood up. Her nudity was plain, though she had a strange ethereal quality to her nether regions, as if they had been blurred out by a smear of paint. She lunged toward him. He deftly side-stepped the move and caught her by her hair. Her cry of pain echoed, and she turned to face him. He released her hair and gave her a long look.

"Speak to me. Though my vision was just a test to see what you are, I know now. I know you're a dhampir. A real Nobility would not be able to resist, and most dhampirs can't resist either. But please, please. No one comes here anymore. I'm alone!"

Finally, D seemed to consider it was worthwhile to hear her story. It was purely miraculous that he could do so. He watched her as she walked back to her place beneath the tree which wept petals. She knelt and moved about for something in the petals, then seemingly produced without trouble a small flask. A second search provided two glasses. She pulled out a blanket and threw it down and she sat at one end. She invited him to sit at the other.

D stood just beyond the edge of the blanket and didn't sit. But he did accept the small glass of warm liquid she offered. It was black and smelled like coffee. Her blue-silver skin took on a purplish hue; she was blushing. "It's all I have that would provide you with some warmth." SHe hesitated. "Though I won't be insulted if you don't drink it."

"Who are you?"

The silver woman said, "I'm nothing more than a persisting spirit of a woman who was killed by Nobility. I was a psychic, and had powers bred into a line of humans the Nobility were experimenting on. When it became known that I could resist the restrictions on knowledge of Nobility lore, they killed us all.. every last one of us died. The last was myself. My name is Astri."

"Your mind was so strong that your spirit lingered here." It was an observation rather than a question. Astri nodded to show her agreement.

"You've persisted here in this place, waiting for Nobility to be near so you can trap them with your mind traps." His voice seemed to maintain the same cold emotionless. But he looked at her with a different set of eyes, and it was hard to say just what he made of this strange phenomenon. He pitied her, but then she said:

"No. No, don't you dare." She looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with vigorous hunger. "It's not that I don't like it here. It's a terrible fate, but if there's a chance that I can make them all suffer, I'll wait forever. I'll wait until I can no longer hold my place in this world. It's the only life that's left for me. It's the only life I can live." Her eyes filled with strange tears - as silver, thick and wet as mercury. She sipped at her coffee, though she knew she'd never taste coffee, or feel the wind, or the petals that filled her hands when she played in her smal world.

D sat down on the opposite edge of the blanket at last, and at least sipped once at the glass. It was still warm and tasted sweet. She said nothing else for a long time, perhaps content to just have someone near her.

Finally, their glasses were empty, and the sky made its revolution toward dawn again. It was now two days at least since D had left the town. The wind blew and the petals softly rained down, collecting on the brim of his hat.

"Before you leave," Astri said, "I must give you something. I don't know who you are yet either. But you have the look of a hunter. It's in your blood now, however long you've been at it. And you resist your vampiric nature. I have respect for you and I think this may help you if you get into situations you cannot navigate safely." She turned slowly, cleared a space free of the petals, and gently lifted a box about the size of the kind that holds shoes, and placed it on the blanket between them. It was carved from wood, appeared very old, with gentle dips and cuts and chips in the fine artwork on all sides. But she reverently lifted one edge of it and moved it so that D could see what was inside. It was another container made of glass and filled with fluid, and secured firmly with a lid. Inside, suspended in the fluid, was a blob of flesh that seemed to transform and twist into a myriad of shapes. It gave off the impression of something stricken with boredom.

"It's a demon," she whispered.

The fleshy creature slowly turned and formed a face, a menacing smile on its lips. It's eyes seemed unaccustomed to light; they were black eyes, devoid of absolutely any human emotion, though the expression was plainly that of excitement. Whatever words it spoke were still trapped inside the jar. Its madly wrinkled little face still sneered from within his glass prison.

D showed no signs of recoiling, though the tension in his body increased. It was a parasite demon, though it was of a symbiotic kind. It helped its host, while at the same time using it to travel and absorb energy from the elements and become stronger. That strength was also accorded to its host. D's father had once become quite obsessed with the little bothersome creatures. Sentient in nature, they had some mouth to them, spouting whatever entered into their minds.

When she lifted the jar, the demon moved violently inside as if trying to escape. It no doubt appeared to be cursing profanely at his captor, and even at D, whose eyes were coldly fixed on the creature. She pressed a series of button to unscrew the lid; the fluid poured out to soak the blanket. And the demon made a run for it, lurching out, but it fell to the blanket and struggled, swearing, "You dried up old bitch, I'm going to chew your eyes out as soon as I--"

Unthinking, D's left hand reached for the symbiotic creature, disgruntled as it was, to rescue it from the blanket. As soon as his fingertips touched the thing, it suddenly bit down on his thumb and sank its teeth into him. Agony raced up D's hand, and his lips tightened and a noise like suction echoed into the air. A flashing light emitted from where the symbiot was attaching itself to D's left hand, into his palm, and it grew brighter and brighter, blinding, and the pain did not relent. He reached his right hand out to grip his left by the wrist. His arms both trembled, and the symbiot's voice died out.

When the light finally faded, he peered at his hand. Nothing appeared to be wrong with it at all. He glared at the woman. But she was gone. Maybe she had not meant to give it to him as a gift but to curse him simply for being half-Noble. He clenched his left hand and stood up, realizing that the blanket, the strange box, and the empty glasses were gone. Nothing remained except the tree, whose rich blossoms filled the air with a thick aroma that spoke of farewell.

* * *

When the sun began to rise again in the quiet forest, D was back at the river's edge. A shine of dawn light reflected from a particularly shiny surface. He approached the river's edge and crept down carefully so his body didn't get touched by the spray or splashes of moving liquid. He reached his left hand to the water's edge and in, plucking the sword from the current before it could dislodge the weapon and carry it downstream further. He leapt back up to safety and began to dry off the sword when he heard the same angry voice from the night before.

"So, you're just gonna pretend I don't exist, huh? I got news for you."

D peered at his left hand. "I was wondering... when you'd appear."

"I don't care much for dodging my questions! I've been stuck in a box for centuries, cranky, alone, with nobody to talk to, and finally I'd like to point out the obvious fact that I'm starving!" The tiny face's voice had a voice as gravelly and offensive as that of any bad-mouthing barman.

"You actually eat?"

"You're dumber than a box of rocks," the symbiotic demon sighed. "I guess I'll have to start from scratch. Listen. See that nice, juicy pile of dirt sitting there? Just put your hand over that and I'll take care of the rest."

D didn't really see any particular pile of dirt, since the hand couldn't really manipulate D's fingers. So he approached a bare patch of earth and crouched down, and planted his hand to the ground. A bizarre, almost comical silence followed; crunching noise, like gravel being mixed, soon filled the silent air, and hungry noises burst from the symbiot's mouth. D's face remained unchanged, but inwardly he was slightly disturbed.

When he pulled his hand away the face was gone, but its voice echoed inside of him. "I'm gonna let that settle for a bit. I'll let you know when to feed me again. Hn, kids!" The last remark seemed to be more to itself than to the silent-but-perplexed dhampir youth. Finally, with his sword recovered, D climbed his way back toward the falls, making his way home to the town in the early sunlight.


	12. Monster versus Human

**A Dhampir Story  
****Chapter XII**

The demon attached to his left hand had a great fountain of knowledge regarding its existence and its usefulness in matters of energy and the spirit world. But rather than divulge any of this to D, it preferred to give him not a scrap of its wisdom. Perhaps its preference for being a bull-headed, mouthy parasite was due to the fact that it had spent several long years of its life starved and contained in a glass jar. Whatever the reason, D did not give his newfound helper a reason to dislike him. It just disliked him anyway on the point of racial difference. It was because D was related to the Nobility, and that the creature was created by the Nobility; therefore, D was a disreputable character.

"Don't get me wrong," the symbiot was saying as D picked his way effortlessly through the twilight forest. "I appreciate you getting me out of that goddamn box, but I think it's time we parted ways. Look, there's a nice healthy doe over there, I can just hitch a ride on her and get myself a nice vacation home in the south..."

D had listened to it idly chattering for a solid hour. It didn't seem to want to shut up. So, without missing a beat, he tried to clench his hand into an appropriate fist, and the chatter was choked off immediately. Placing one foot in front of the other, he used his left arm to move aside a bit of tall fern while his right hand drifted to his sheathed sword. The blade was not dulled much from its journey in the watery rapids. It would still be foolish were he to trust it in battle without examining it for damage any further first.

Earlier, he had climbed up the rocks alongside the river, walked across a fallen tree to the other side of the rushing body of water, and ended up back in the beast people's camp. There was a cold fireplace and not a soul in sight, and the smoking bonfire was nothing more than a charred mound of ash. D picked his way around the area, trying to search for signs of where the violence-starved pack of beastmen might have gone. He was still thinking about the abandoned, estranged woman whose spirit haunted the forest a mile or two away. He had alerted her to the presence of the beast men but did not expect in his mind that she would do anything to them. Her vendetta was with the Nobility. However, she had indicated that she would make life difficult for them if they should disturb her sanctum.

The wicked sunlight's heat had seeped into the ground and mist rose in eddying pale sheets across his path. Once he found his way across the road, there was a group of his fellowship waiting for him.

They saw him coming out of the mist and each one of them had a sick feeling in their gut. But it was a feeling they had slowly grown accustomed to. It was almost a comforting clenching of their hands on the reins of their horses; the trickle of sweat down their backs. Their eyes widened when they spied the young boy emerge from the darkness of the tree unharmed. Among the twelve gentlemen astride their horses, only one of them dismounted. Zhou approached D first, presenting him with his mount.

"I don't know what happened to you," Zhou said. "But I had no doubt that you'd come back. Who was it that you were looking for?"

"A familiar face. He might come up again, so keep your eyes open for beast men."

"Beast men?!" cried one of the hunters. He smacked his leg and laughed. "Great! If they come sniffin' up our arses, I'll be sure to give 'em a kiss from my Betty." No doubt the name was for the enormous cannon he had fashioned from salvaged parts of the man's own design, which was seated across his massive shoulders. He guffawed with the other hunters, who were hardened men who feared nothing.

D looked up and nodded, though his expression was hard to read. What was it that still bothered him? Zhou wondered, narrowing his eye at the young man. D felt different somehow. He did not know how, and it was not his business to ask. For the sake of his trust in D, he would let D take care of his personal matters. He needed this time for himself to discover the strength he had. It was that very humanness in D that might save him from becoming the monsters that he had sworn to destroy.

"All right," said Harvy from the back of his steed, anxiously rubbing the stubble on his chin. "He's back now, so can we just get the hell out of here? Aren't we going to... take care of the real business at hand?" He looked back to the north, where lay the general direction of the vampire lord... whose name could not yet be uttered by any humans without feeling the sting of cold down their backs.

D mounted his horse and tucked his hat down over his eyes, meeting Zhou's gaze, who said, "Yes, I think it's time. We're all ready. We've got nothing more now than to ready ourselves for a final confrontation. Do not spend your rations unwisely while you prepare. We're going to ride to Firhaven Town now. We'll get our supplies there, and then our compasses will direct us north once again."

Zhou's expression looked tired. He knew that it was useless to send a letter via hawk to the orphanage at this point. Rhea had not replied and would not reply. The post was not usually unreliable. Experienced, powerful men and women ran the post roads with vigor. Once, they had recieved a single letter a month ago from Eili who had written that Rhea was unwell but would be taken care of as well as could be expected.

D felt a stab of nostalgia and a bit of shock. It seemed so unfair that he had been gone long enough to the point where Eili had learned how to write, and had taken the initiative to write a letter in Rhea's stead. As he looked at Zhou, he was reminded of the girl's small hands and bright green eyes, and the leaping figure of her on the beach sand, laughing in the hopeful sunlight. Was she any taller now? Did she grow her hair long, or cut it short? His eyes closed and his hands clenched.

"Who's this I see?" he heard a voice murmur in the planes of his mind. "Is that one of your girlfriends? Well, it's nice you got a friend back home, but you better forget about her. Soon she'll be a real demon like the rest of those brats. She won't even remember who you are."

_That's not true_, D thought angrily, but in his heart, he wondered if the parasite was right.

* * *

In four whole days, they traveled with the remnants of their supplies dropping low. They would need more if they wanted to make the track back to the northern country. The mood of the group suffered from the lack of food and proper nutrition and the company of women, despite the few females who were among their group who fought just as hard and occasionally satisfied the rampant desires that struck at night, during the long hours of rest. D spent even more time than usual alone, in order to explore the new entity that shared his body. It was a mouthy creature, but full of information that would provide useful insight to the troubles that lay ahead. But D had enough time to explore the parasite's mysteries later. He was reluctant to see how it would be of any help at all. So far, he had learned it could devour elements in order to store up energy for whatever might occur later on. All it usually required was water, dirt, and occasionally a lit matchstick. It ate those regularly at night and asked nothing more of its host.

When they arrivey, they spied a bustling beehive of human activity on the horizon.

Firhaven Town, a fairly bustling city full of prospective buyers and sellers of land, goods, and skills. The tallest of buildings for miles rose from the ground. It even ran a hospital. The streets were a bit filthy, but it was part of the price of living there. It was rather clean, all things considered. A man could make an honest living doing pretty much anything there. It was full of humanity's hope, and it was something the young dhampir had not seen much of before. He rode into the town with his entourage of hunters, and each person who spied the miniature army seemed to have a different look on his or her face. It wasn't until they reached the square and settled down that they were approached by local law enforcement.

"Look at the welcoming party," the parasite muttered. "Humans are doin' pretty well for themselves."

"Did you say something?" Zhou asked, but D only encouraged his horse to walk on further to get something to drink from the water fountain.

As he dismounted, he used his left hand to stroke the horse and left his right to be ready to draw his sword. It was only customary and no one blamed him.

The group that approached the vampire hunter's army was quite a sight to behold. It seemed every military personel went elbow-to-elbow with every mercenary, hunter, and general low-life just to greet them. If there was anything that cut-throat humans and do-gooders had alike, it was their absolute abhorrence for the Nobility. That was why the group was not unwelcome. The dozens of individuals looked at the crowd of warriors who hunted the Nobility with awe and a little bit of fear. Even the hard-shelled city-folk could not ever completely grasp the hardship of living on the road and slaying Nobility as if it were just another week's paycheck.

Zhou was the undisputed spokesperson. The Easterner had a soft voice when he wanted to. It dispelled the weirdness of the moment, two groups viewing each other with hard eyes.

"We are Vampire Hunters," he said, "if that it not already obvious." The slight chuckle in his voice won a few soft laughs. "We merely ask for your hospitality, and in return, we will cause no trouble."

The group mumbled, moved around, parted so that someone else could talk to Zhou. He was of some authority, being the town's official chief of security. But he really looked to the Hunters like a beefed up version of a sheriff; he came installed with his own quartet of muscled guards. The figure of D seemed to be the center of his world, staring at him as if he had never seen so young a person look so old and wartorn.

"My name is William, and I want to know what a group this size is after." The man's voice was as thick with the South as anything else. His squinting eyes were dark and his skin looked like charred leather. If he had lived every day sitting in direct sunlight, then it would be easy to believe why he looked as old an as eighty-year-old man when he was probably around half that age.

The reply came from Zhou: "I told you, we're Vampire Hunters and we only want a place to stock up our supplies before our last adventure. A town this size will not be depleted if we buy some of your honest, hard-earned supplies."

Each person's face lifted a little bit at this news. It was always a comfort when people said to 'buy' and not to pillage. Was it any wonder that the hunting party wasn not surrounded as soon as they approached the town's borders? Maybe it was news beforehand - that they were the renowned vampire extermination army, who had quietly slipped across the little bit of their Frontier eliminating vampires. That had to be the only explanation.

In a few hours, they had completely got room and board. There was an entire building and each room was full and then some. But there were beds, breakfast, and enough of the company of women to keep the gentlemen happy. But for D, there would be nothing of room and board. In fact, when it came to see where he would be roomed, he was nowhere at all to be found until later, when he returned to report that he had unsaddled his horse and paid the stablemaster with his own pocket money. The quiet man had singled out a place for him to sleep in the barn with his horse, free of charge, and no one argued about it.

Zhou pressured D into talking about what happened into the woods, now that they could afford to relax and take the time for a thorough retelling. D repeated his story again. Harvy sat quietly at a table in the Jack Rabbit Tavern, which owned the four-story building next door as its hotel. They settled down in a dimly lit corner and shared a pitcher of water. D's left hand was tightly gloved; in fact, on both hands, he had bought a pair of gloves to wear.

"So you don't know for sure he died?"

"He went over," D said. "I didn't find his body. I can only assume he walked off, or was washed downriver. It's not my business, and if he's smart, he won't follow me to the city."

"You're right," Harvy agreed heartily. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned in closer. "They'd snap him up at the border crossing we passed before he could sneeze and think twice about it." The big man's word were warm and comforting. But if any of the beast men still held allegiance for the serpent-child, it was hardly in the town's best interests that they stay for too long.

"They'll come here," Zhou said, "if Vice wants his revenge bad enough. But I don't think so. He shouldn't pose too much of a threat. Our trackers did not find any evidence that we were being followed."

"That doesn't mean we weren't," D argued.

"There are other ways of traveling than walking," Zhou agreed. "In any case, we can't be troubled by it. Everyone's tired. If you're worried, you can stay up tonight and keep watch. I don't think it will be a problem for you, will it, D?"

D shook his head and sipped at the water. It wasn't like he needed any kind of rest. If he needed to, he would let Zhou know that he was going to head into trouble. It was always like that lately; he would never let Zhou face D's problems for him, or help him in any way. It was not because he was proud, but... somehow he felt if he did not protect the ones he cared about, they would slip away. There was a stillness in his breast where his heart had once beaten loudly, but of late, it had started to grow a little colder and a little darker. It was nothing he could stop; somehow, the closer he came to his inevitable goal, the blacker his soul felt. In spite of all the human emotion he held onto, tightly, there was no room for much hope in him. He had not even considered what would follow - for his life, the lives of the hunting party, for the Refuge, or for all of humanity - after they had attempted killing the Vampire King. If Zhou had asked him whether or not they would succeed, D would find no answer that would satisfy him.

Which is precisely why Zhou did not ask. He seemed to find a solace in his own heart that no matter what happened, destiny would not disappoint. The stars would move and the sun would rise on a different world, for better or for worse.

Come what may, everything would be the way destiny intended it to be.

Zhou gazed quietly at the dhampir while the dark figure stared from a window out into the twilit street. Harvy seemed to experience a sudden urge to use the bathroom and excused himself, glancing anxiously at the pair before making his way back to the room that had been booked for him.

The fearful night was coming, and the town was preparing itself for the nightly vigil against very real monsters.

"Are you going to be all right?" Zhou suddenly asked, his heart wrenche with an immediate fatherly instinct. "I mean..." He did not want to bring up the experience from the other night. Seeing D enraptured (not for the first time) by blood gave the Easterner a frightening reality: D was in a most precarious situation. Now was the time when he needed to decide whether he would join his blood drinking ancestors in joyless sin, or withdraw from the world of both man and monster altogether in the spirit of moral preservation.

Surprisingly, D provided some kind of answer. "I think I'll be okay if you're with me. I don't know if I could have done any of this alone... but I'm still not sure if I'm not dooming everyone around me..."

"You will know by the time we leave who is going to stay by your side of their own free will and who will leave for larger responsibilities. It is not your choice who lives and dies, remember? You're not damning anyone."

"I've already damned you." He looked up for a minute and gave Zhou the most heart-breaking look, a look so miserable it could inspire music to endure the decades. "It's not my choice anymore."

Zhou reached for him the instant he watched him stand, but he slipped out of his grasp and out of his sight before he could do anything to contradict him. Acidic regret ate a hole in his resolve... but he had made a commitment to Rhea and to Deron ages ago.

------

When D closed the door to the stable barn and made his way to the inviting patch of earth beside his horse's stall, the thoughts that had plagued him seem to become incredibly overwhelming. He slid down to the ground and piled up enough clean straw to lay his head on, a chill settling in his limbs he could not dispel with the usual meditation. The shadow of something in him was growing. His body ached, and he laid with his arms wrapped around himself.

"So you're gonna put a glove on me, huh? Some hospitality around here!" the parasite snickered. Its gruff, muffled voice was dripping with malicious arrogance. "I figured you to be an idiot, but I bet you won't like what's happening inside you right now. You may not wanna admit it, but I can see it." The voice dropped to a conspiratory whisper that could only be conveyed directly through D's consciousness. _Are you gettin' thirsty, kid?_

The coldness was creeping across his chest, into his throat. While he trembled, he wondered if he could fight it off again. If it was a psychological attack, he would have known it by now, but that explanation would not be so simple. He was alone. The back of his hand was pressed against his mouth as if to hold back the fangs he felt pushing against his teeth. Each heartbeat within his immediate area was amplified, an uneven rumble of staccato thumps that beat almost directly into his ear. A metallic smell seemed to pour from the stalls all around him, suffocating with its stinging aroma; at the same time, his eyes were open and as he gazed along the wall he could see a faint, red outline like a drunken spider's web. When he blinked, he was actually looking at one of the other horses.

"I won't," he swore thickly, eyes shutting, trying to disengage every sense from what was happening, what was going through his mind, what his body was feeling. But the lure of power was there; if he gave into that forbidden urge, he would be stronger, faster, than he ever had been before. He would be able to kill his father without thinking twice about it. He would not have to endanger anyone...

"And best of all," the parasite said, "you wouldn't need me."

The parasite's dodgy logic did not appear to have any affect on the youth; he merely wandered down the center aisle of the stable feeling as light as an addict discovering some new, soul-opening hallucinagenic substance. It filled him with a seducing effect of slowness. Seconds felt like hours. Like eternity was in his veins, and he had no worries. His father could wait. Just until he could find the answer to his very paradoxical existence. He barely heard the voice inside his own head, ranting in babbling language that was below his level of understanding and thus not worth a speck of his attention. He gave it no more thought than he would a mosquito landing on his sleeve.

In another stall now. He heard its trembling heart thumping and by now, he had caught its gaze and held it as he approached, trying to keep it calm... he reached out his hand and stroked a velvety nose; the animal's fear had it frozen in place, trembling from its hind legs to its very living hair roots. A sound like a human moan came from its chest. Its body warmth lured him closer, until he had buried his head in the creature's soft neck, his fingers tangling in a mane the color of chocolate milk. Overpowering hunger made him tremble with unsure energy, lost in thought about the delightful aroma that could only be described as "alive" that was redolent of blood, horse hair, straw; lost in that swoon, he hardly noticed another figure entering his periphery. To his eyes, it became just another smudge of glowing crimson encapsuling his sight.

Until then, he was given over to the urge to partake in blood, in all its forms - animal, human. Whichever. Enough to sate an untouchable, unquenchable thirst. Enough to leave him sated but never fully satisfied. It put a veil of red so thick he could barely see through it over his eyes. He heard someone coming close, but when he actually turned to pay it some attention, he was shocked by the sudden, harsh light burning through his sickness and into his logic.

He was sick with himself, and blood from the horse's neck was dripping down his neck into his collar, where it turned cold. Sticky, like drying paint. He recoiled like an animal from the light, and he twisted his head around to keep it out of his eyes, but no matter where he looked, there it was. A voice called, the voice of the light, "Deron, come back from the thirst."

"Zhou." His own saliva and the blood was like glue in his mouth. It hardly filled him with the same pleasure the small taste of human blood had; the same voice that begged for blood suddenly grew silent with the deafening tide of reason and most of all, disgust.

The muscular silhouette of Zhou serenely bathed him in the holy symbol's glow until the young dhampir stood up while wiping his mouth. He watched the dhampir shake with weakness and helpless emotion, as if he had committed the vilest of crimes. The Easterner felt faintly pitying toward the boy, but he grudgingly kept his guard intact. There was no fool greater than one who turned his heels toward a blood-thirsty dhampir.

He saw the red haze take leave of the young man. When he saw the cool blue eyes illuminated by the light fix on Zhou with painful clarity, he slowly replaced the glimmering object in a pocket out of sight - but nonetheless easily within his reach.

"What is that?" D said at last. "I've seen it before..."

"It's a relic of times past. You'll start seeing it more and more as time goes on, I can happily assure you. Have you taken command of yourself? I can't say I am relieved that your victim tonight was a horse." Nonetheless, Zhou added privately, the animal must be destroyed before people find out.

D looked wretchedly ashamed. But there was a certain level of pride that tried to hide it. The struggle was plain on the young man's face anyway. Zhou approached without any appearance of caution and laid his hand the trembling shoulder. "I'm proud of you, D... for trying as hard as you have. But even notable heroes of your kind could not resist it."

D did not say aloud that he doubted that there were ever really any 'notable heroes' of any kind where it concerned the Nobility. "So why were they heroes if the thirst eventually won out?"

"I was out late tonight, looking for something I heard rumors about. Well, as it turns out, it was no rumor at all but the truth. I've found something of a supplier and used most of my savings to get something for you especially."

D felt like he was not liking the direction of this. "...For me?"

They retreated inside in the darkness. Zhou's hand disappeared into a pocket inside his vest. The man's time-worn hand exchanged a sizable brown bottle full of pills into D's possession. The bottle looked new, but the repugnant smell of the pills was a little strange after D had unscrewed the top. It had a child-safe mechanism that was ridiculously primitive - hold down, then unscrew it. "What are these, Zhou?"

"They're not something you ought to advertise, but I figured now was the time you would need them the most." He lowered his voice a bit more, rolling one of the pills between his thumb and forefinger. "This is blood... in pill form. All you would need is water... preferably boiled, but any water can do. Mix one pill in, and it becomes a viable replacement for actual blood." He paused meaningfully. "These are designed purely for the consumption of blood. The Nobility used them for long trips across uninhabitable lands... and the way to create them was stolen. I knew a physician here could procure the materials from living donors--"

"Materials?" D's voice was cold. "You mean actual blood?"

"The donors need not die. But it is a heretical procedure. Many such labs to create the pills are burned and pillaged and torn apart. But these were mightily expensive. I wanted to buy them for you... to help you. I know it sounds patronizing, but do not squander them. They are not meant to be an excuse to give in. Only in such emergencies as you see fit. If you feel the thirst; if you feel you may endanger those around you. Try to control the thirst as best you can before you resort to these. I know you have the will to do it."

Zhou's eye glinted like a lonely star in the dark. He began to take D's measure with an acute eye, and the young man gave Zhou an equally level stare. The animal blood would sustain D for several more days now... but it was a terrible mistake to allow him to leave Zhou's sight.

The pair conversed for a small while longer. Shortly, it was decided that the horse would be replaced and explained that it died mysteriously in the night of a bad heart. It was to be kept as small an incident as possible. They disposed of the body by dismemberment and dispersement of the various pieces... and that was all there was to that.

The night ended. D did not sleep fitfully at all. The bottle of pills was a kind and awesome gesture, but there was no reconciling with the fact that D had entered the terrible stage of his existence where bloodthirst would clamp onto his days and nights with the tenacity of a starving lion. There was no complete satisfaction in knowing there were those pills to fall back on. He was, by his definition of the word, almost as much of a monster as any of those beastmen. Maybe like the animals in the forest, borne of Noble design. Certainly no better than the Nobility. He was unnatural, and any contact with humans was to be on a platonic, business-only level. There was the one thing D could boast of that all others lacked: it was the human attachment he clung to toward his young friend Eili. That was all he had. Hopeful of seeing her again, but sad because he was certain that he would not before his death, D pondered all related manner of things that night, ever resentful of his new dependency on blood.

His body ached in the morning light. It was business after all of the men had consummated their human lusts and urges to drink the previous night. He gave no one a moment to harass him, and found a preferrably quiet place to brood. While preparations were orchestrated, Zhou was approached by a postman wearing the nostalgia-inducing eagle-profile on his shirt-front and sleeve. He was armed to the teeth but he smiled as he entered the Inn with his bundles of letters.

Zhou followed him inside and watched him hand a letter to the older woman behind the reception desk. Zhou approached, a sinking feeling in his stomach when she looked at him. "Are you expecting mail? This appears to be for someone named Deron. I recall he was among your group, sir." She gave the letter after checking the guest list, which took no less than a minute.

It had to be from Eili. There was nothing unusual about the letter, it had a simple printed address, Deron's first name only. No return address, though. Zhou frowned, and sought out the young man in black. He found him at the city fountain, gazing into the water, trying to ignore the long stares that women were giving him. It seemed his new emergence into puberty accorded him some sort of aura that attracted the opposite sex. "D, a letter came for you."

Without preamble, D snatched the envelope from Zhou and flicked it open with a sharp nail. His ice blue eyes fixed on the page under the wide-brimmed hat's shadow. He looked even paler than the light-colored sand dusting the town's streets.

"This is my father's hand-writing."


	13. Invitation

**A Dhampir Story  
****Chapter XIII**

D kept the contents of the letter a dire secret. His eyes pored over the yellowed paper with a terrible hunger, as if he was unlocking the secret to opening Hell's gates. He pressed a hand against the hilt of his sword. Zhou's eyes watched his every movement; in a few minutes, D would decide whether it was hopeless, or even more desperate and necessary than ever to survive the gauntlet killing fields of his father's homeland. But in the end, D kept the contents to himself, and before the older man could even get a breath of the letter's otherworldly scent left by being in the possession of the nosferatu, D balled up the letter in his left hand and kept it there. Odd, Zhou thought, and left it at that.

"I don't know," D said, "but I don't think I have to say it when it's obvious he will know we're coming. It's pointless to go about feigning ignorance when we're such a large group..." He trailed off, and his empty left hand reached up to pull his hat over his eyes against the sunlight. "But he invites us with cheer to lay our corpses on his doorstep."

The message had much more to say than that, but that knowledge was privy only to the dhampir. Perhaps it was a matter of private words. Zhou's mind tried to conceive the words that the Noble King might have written for his son only. Words of encouragement? Warnings or challenges? Or, impossible it seemed, warm melancholy words of lost opportunities and choices rationaled for ill? It had no bearing on the situation at hand. D was set in his path; he would not be swerved in the least, especially by his father's misguided post.

How much was D keeping a secret from his human warriors? When it concerned warfare, D shared all he remembered of his homeland's defenses so they would make sure to go prepared. There were few things that his army of men would not do for D. They had all witnessed D's unearthly powers and they were all ensnared by the powers of darkness that formed a ephemeral web around the young man. Zhou had begun to feel it as well since the previous night. He saw the change overcome D; it was a shadow over his eyes, the unspeakable burden of bloodthirst, the ache for something warm, a cup that would never be filled by repeated visits to the throats of young and old alike. Would this new perception of D change the way the soldiers thought of D?

Zhou had a slow, dream-like glimpse of D's face just before the dhampir turned and made his way back toward the town stable master's shed, intent upon getting all the horses of the group ready before nightfall.

"He will send his agents to stop us. Make sure everyone is packed and ready to depart, Zhou."

"I will," Zhou murmured, trying to battle with his fear and respect of D. He had a feeling that the dhampir youth was far beyond words made for comfort or reassurance. There were ways D comforted himself, but he would never know.

The noon sun's oppression disagreed with D, but he kept out of sight for most of the day, while Zhou organized who would be responsible for carrying everyone's belongings. Hence, he was always out of sight of what was going on among the others. So that was why he did not realize what they said was not always good. Considering the secrecy with which D kept himself, this was no way indicative of being misinformed. He knew intuitively since he set foot within sight of them that they clammed up, they turned their heads down, or sometimes stared without meaning to - because he was different from them and yet somehow in an unspoken position of authority. He did not say anything to support or dismantle this belief. Additionally, he was not going out of his comfort zone to give them any words before they set out. In fact, they weren't sure he particularly cared anymore for their well-being. That was no fear of death among them, but it was nothing to say that they would have appreciated any vote of confidence from the ghostly warrior whose scarred companion had wooed them away in this quest.

Harvy was glowering over his work. He was securing his packs, getting his various ammunition together, checking and double-checking his metal food containers for any breaks in airtight seals. His companions were rowdy but agreeable to his company, fully knowledgable of Harvy's particular preference to men, but there was hardly a day went by that he did not think of George's unfortunate death. He did mean it back when he said he did not blame D at all, but there was still a sore spot when he looked at that creepy pale-faced boy, who had survived far too much than any normal dhampir. Harvy's growing excitement for the battle at the castle of Dracula was mounting day by day, and he was getting the feeling that by the end of the day, they would have twenty more strong-willed men to fight alongside. It comforted them all in the end enough to collectively decude not to mutiny against the dhampir and his oriental buddy.

The sun slunk behind a pack of rain-starved clouds; it was ominously dark by three in the afternoon. After a hearty lunch, the entire town got together to bid the ill-fated collection of heroes good luck and good-bye, though the half-hearted well-wishes seemed to fall from numb mouths. Each man, woman and child hardly dared be hopeful. They knew that if they failed, the bloody, imminent retribution would come within the night of their failure. No one would act surprised if every town that had supplied a soldier lost every single citizen to undying torment. There were few things more hopeless than a town selected for annihilation by the Father of Death; standing graveyards decorated with empty grinning skeletons still wearing the clothes they had worn the day before, or piles of indistinguishable flesh and bone ground into a muddy red color left in the streets.

That was the fate they suffered... if the Slayer's Army failed.

They watched them leave fearfully. From various small shop windows they stopped whatever it was they did to follow their purposeful progress, and from the archway walkways above they peered down pensively. Eyes that were black like a spider's gazed unblinkingly; in an effort to blend in to the crowd, children stood on boxes to look also and they made a spectacle of standing still, round faces flushed with fear of discovery.

The armed men made an impressive sight from up close, but as they dwindled in the distance heading north through the enormous stone gates in the walls, they shrank smaller and smaller, until they became a blemish on the horizon. The title army seemed less and less appropriate. At that point, the prayers they mouthed for their success dried up in their mouths like old, stale crackers.

As the war-train moved with measured haste toward their final destination, they passed a train of bedraggled, haunted faces - women and children walking, clutching various belongings, carrying kitchen ware, food and clothes in sacks made of sheets. They were alone and almost all had the pallor of grief and despair draining the color from their faces, clothes, emotions. Ragged pieces of cloth clung to their bodies as though something had torn their raiments to pieces as they fled. They walked in single file, the smallest children carried on the backs of the strongest women. The train of warriors made room for them on the road, watching them with grave and often angry looks. It seemed as if they had indirectly caused this, but it only invoked their wrath to finish the job they had begun. The perpetrator was always the vampire.

However, as they continued, braver children and women glowered at the men. They even seemed to overcome their natural aversion to the dark figure on horseback at the head.

As they reached the end of the train, a stone flew and struck the dark horseman's steed on the flank. The animal started and complained.

D, however, kept his hat bent against the fading daylight and stayed his course. It hadn't made any sense to the men; at least a hard look would have put the stupid child in his place. After all, they were risking their asses for them. However, their logic hadn't quite reached the point where it put their own lives in danger.

Then a man suddenly ran out from the train and rushed to a woman and child. It was desperation; his voice lost itself in the bustle of horse hoofs and engines, his figure choked in the dust. Zhou, riding alongside Harvy, looked back a little but couldn't really see who it was. But he noticed that the man did not rejoin the line; somehow it felt rather poignant, another sign that there was something awry. It was all he could do not to indulge in his urge to question D.

D stared straight ahead, leaving the coils of mortal attachment to the mortals.

"You... you knew this," Zhou whispered as he gazed at the exchange. The man embraced the woman and the child; then he too vanished into the receding dust. "The Vampire Lord did all this..."

* * *

Mouka, in the chilly, icy present, was chipping the ice off the tack in the stables. It was midday, and the previous night the skies had opened up with half-frozen water. Subzero wind from the lake coupled with the water to smear every surface with a hazy glow. The trees glittered in the daylight; it was a sight only a vampire would wish to see. To Mouka, it meant work. The hole in the stable roof had let the ice come in and he had spent the entire day chipping away at the ice, but it was somehow chillier with daylight pouring in... because D was helping him.

D seemed to have an easier time, but he was taking his time. Mouka knew almost for sure that D could do more about the ice than he was at that moment, but maybe he was trying it the slow, boring, painstaking way to give himself something to do while he thought.

Mouka placed himself at a distance from him, wondering if he should speak.

"I know you want to wait for night-time so Miranda can hear," Mouka began, his voice phlegmy because of the weather. He tried to continue. "But I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more. It's rough trying to wait all day, and I end up sleeping through part of the story anyway because of being tired. Besides, I'm still trying to reverse my sleeping pattern so I can socialize with you two!"

D worked the end of a chisel into the joints of the cyborg horses shoulder, then struck it so that a sizable piece of ice fell off to the hard floor with a clatter. "You want to hear more?"

"It'd be nice... I mean, just a little. Or you not up to sharing this early in the 'morning'?" The fire magician made a valiant attempt to jest. But it fell pitifully short. Again.

D had been chipping for some time; he finally answered. "What did you want to hear?"

Mouka dropped the tool he was using; he bent to pick it up, aching in his joints from standing for so long. "I, uh, I wanted to know-- if it's okay -- I mean, what happened to... to Rhea?"

The dhampir continued to chip at ice until he let his hand holding the tool fall to his side; his entire arm disappeared inside the voluminous traveling cloak secured around his shoulders. "What happened?" he echoed. "I don't know."

"You haven't talked about her except the letters Eili sent."

To hear her name spoken on someone else's tongue so blithely sent a shiver of anger down his back. Mouka noticed it and felt the chill bite harder into his skin. He felt an apology dry up on his tongue and shrivel. "I don't know... I mean... I won't ask again."

"That's what I'm trying to find out. I don't remember much about it." In fact, rather than being the smudges of wear and tear from passage of time, there was nothing short of an enormous chunk of time, as if it had been neatly sliced out of everything. He had pieces remaining near the edges - bits of the traveling. Going to the castle. And then somehow there was the memory of urgency and returning. He pressed his knuckle against his teeth; he was hardly aware that Mouka was still watching silently, expectantly and maybe a little fearfully.

A voice slid in between his thoughts, intrusive but politely gentle. _It's best you don't remember. Unless you think you are prepared to fall inside yourself, see what you haven't dared to since then._

As Mouka watched, D finally answered thickly, "I'll tell you when I remember." The answer was mysterious and evasive and totally expected from D. Mouka heaved an annoyed sigh as he rubbed his hands together to warm them up. The cloaked figure he knew as D slipped outside into the snowy daylight and that was the last he saw of him for the rest of the day.

* * *

One night, tucked between two mountains in the spiny northern highlands where the snow already drifted dreamily to the earth, the road-hardened warband made camp. A dusting of gray covered saddles and sleeping rolls as campfires burned steadfast; a network of guardian sensors circuited the encampment and barred passage of anything that was not recognized in the full data system. Even if anyone did walk past the secured laser system that had the form, smell and voice of their own, the lasers would set off a piercing alarm and automatic turrets would unleash a hellfire of bullets.

In the cradle between the mountains, smooth stones led up to the slopes, where protrusions of rock as if something had punched them out from within stuck at odd angles. They continued upwards until gravity had sent them tumbling down to collect near the bottom, where rushing spring waters smoothed them to naught, for centuries. As the mountains peaked, snow and ice piled freely and even in fullblown summer the snow would not melt there. Miles of sheer rock face closed over their heads and ledges thick with snow glowed in the faded moonlight obscured by fragile clouds and snowflies.

Women warriors snuggled with their lovers in the dark without speaking of the bleak destination they faced, imprisoned by shards of stone.

"Can you believe this kind of thing is happening right now, while we're alive?" Harvy said, warming his mug of coffee by the fire. Beside him, Zhou flexed his hands and wondered at the quietness. "I haven't been able to sleep for ages. I keep thinking about all the ways I wanted to die... and realized... kind of-- Aw hell, it's stupid."

"Tell me," Zhou insisted with such urgency that Harvy thought it was like it was life-or-death.

"This is the way I've always wanted to live." The man looked down into his coffee, sipped at it luxuriantly. "I don't care what happens next. Only... I wish I didn't feel so alone, even with all these people."

"Then you know something most of us do not."

"What do you mean?"

"No one wants to live alone. Even at your happiest, you find yourself wishing you had someone there beside you. Particularly right now." A pained look overcame the Easterner, and he looked suddenly like an ancient wiseman in the firelight. The weather didn't help him look any younger, huddling beneath the heavy, black blanket normally reserved for making shade against the sun. D had loaned it to him an hour ago before he had gone off on one of his mysterious disappearances, floating like a ghost on the winds.

The night watch stayed up, waiting for sign of D. Had he run off? they thought, entertaining ideas that he was probably hiding in one of the tents, getting in his nightly 'sucking' action with his Eastern friend. They discussed in quiet, lewd terms, laughing a little, the kinds of 'sucking' that could happen, until the oppressive cold drove their attention to the sky. It was pitch black and not a single eye was spared a snowflake. Boys in their late teens depended on their hormones to guide their urges beneath their blanket, between their legs, but a dhampir's urges were even more primitive still - the pleasure gained from blood. None of those men would ever wish to imagine that kind of perversion of nature inflicted on them.

In fact, where the young man had gone was not very far at all. He walked just beyond the reach of their camp lights, restless, unusually so. He patrolled around, hearing every word the night watch said, and thinking nothing about it. They had their talk to keep them company.

He heard everything else in the wilderness too. The chalice full of round stones echoed all that occured; the darkness concealed all but sound. The snow muffled a little. D closed his eyes to let his pointed dhampir ears pick up the sounds that escaped everyone else's attention. From miles away, mountain cats screamed across the peaks. He heard something else, too, like a drum, insistent and powerful, and he walked to its beat because there was nothing else to listen to but the cats' woman-like wails.

When the night watch changed shifts he walked around the camp and climbed without any effort at all, into darker night than before. Stones piled three high warranted little attention; perhaps someone long ago put them that way. Each stone was no bigger than five food wide, not quite all cylindrical, so it must have taken monumental effort - or the effort of a single supernatural beast - to move them all the way from the bottom of the mountains to stack them in a random path toward the slope until it became too steep to achieve. Either way, D walked as one guided by a voice. The drum-beat thrummed in his veins; he knew it for what it really was, but he had no intention of giving it recognition.

His lifted his eyes and gazed through the snow. He had reached an overhanging ledge that projected thirty feet out over the chalice, having climbed a great deal along the slope, and he had walked through enough snow and piles of stones to reach the tall, tree-like spines coming from the ground in bunches that had not yet fallen. The very edge was blurred by the snow falling more furiously than before. But rather than blowing wind, it was silent.

D's left hand muttered, "Someone else is here."

A figure stood at the edge of the snowladen precipice. He had long, luxuriant dark hair that seemed untouched by the wind; he had no movement indicating breathing. His face was angular and smoothshaven, with a slightly steeped brow. He had deep brown eyes that swallowed all of the darkness; his face glowed with unusual warmth, as if he had sucked the heat from the sun itself and wore it like a cream on his skin. He had the signature pointed ears of the Nobility. He had a night-blue brocade frock coat, and blood red jewels dangled from his ears.

His expressive face quickly adopted a smile for D. "It is good to see you." The drum-beat was loud. The snow was stained red beside the dark-haired man. And then D noticed that behind him, a small diminutive figure of a boy was curled up for warmth against the vampire's leather-bound leg. He gave D a sleepy, glazed glance. His neck was punctured in two places; his pupils devoured his iris in black, and his tattered clothes barely left anything to the imagination. He huddled tighter against the Noble who had taken his blood, obviously acting in pure instinct to stay warm. The temperature seemed to have plummeted at this altitude.

"Deron. God's Gift to Dracula." The Noble man stroked the boy's hair, guiding his face toward his hip; the movement was unmistakable - elongated nails rasping over the boy's hair, teasing over the tips of his cold ears. "Do you remember me? Dracula's son, Ramus." He bared his teeth in a sordid grin, mixed pleasure and annoyance.

D breathed through his mouth. "Dracula's son?"

"His Blood. Not necessarily the same strain of bastard progeny you are." He turned the boy's head so D saw the open wounds, still weeping blood. "Bite? Or are you still a squeamish half-blood?"

D glared from under his hat, his hand moving to his sword.

The boy's deadened expression became hauntingly bright as he peered up at the man, like whispers of love had been uttered into his ears. Then Ramus the Noble reached to slide his hand around the back of the youth's neck and break it. The young mortal fell sideways like a doll, toppled tower of skin and bones.

"Father wishes you would leave these idiots behind and hurry ahead to meet him. I've also come to give you my own incentive." He lifted his long-nailed, elegant hand. He wore a jeweled ring on his pointer finger, which he idly pointed toward Deron. That slow, easy, seductive smile made women and men both melt completely, their will softened to useless putty. D looked back at him, wondering what he was offering, until he realized he was beckoning to approach.

Without understanding, he walked forward until he stood with the other on the precipice, his eyes fixed on the other, straining to read the intent of the Noble. He had known Ramus. He remembered their friendship, short-lived before his exile. It was one of the few things that made his life without his father's love bearable. While he was forced to disappear for days at a time, Ramus had come to spend those hours with him in the library or in the courtyard.

But those were years gone, and he had become something other; his name would instill concern at the very least in the hearts of the Nobility. In others, it would instill mind-numbing terror. Ramus's history with him had no hold on him anymore. Or what he was about to do.

D raised his left hand - leaving nothing but a silvery flash arching from his left hip to the upper right, above Ramus's right shoulder. The vampire gracefully slid backward, but his face was anything but serene. A bloodied snarl escaped from his lips, his extended hand of offering having become something monstrous - a solid metal claw, reeking of blood from where the armor-like skin had been cut into. That was pure supernatural skill behind each swordstroke, and Ramus knew it.

The paired enemies glared across the brief distance, a universe of snowflakes roaring around them. In the far-off night, shouts filled the air. Had someone been waiting for D to leave, before striking at the camp?

His lips sliding back from his pointed teeth, Ramus said, "I see. You have left it all behind for the cattle, haven't you?"

"For no one." D's left hand gripping the sword moved. There was a split-second of harnessed power between that, and the open slash growing wider by the second as Ramus stepped back and back, until his foot ceased to find solid ground. He leapt up. D followed. They were airborne for too many seconds, longer than any normal person to leap. D's sword flashed again and again while a disgruntled Noble tried to deflect and find an opening. He struck back at last with a bladed spear he pulled from his cloak. He pressed a single button and it extended to its full length, the double-edged blade gleaming cruelly like a single fang.

D was falling at the end of his momentum, his body carving a curved path through the snow. He gave his quarry a single look before he vanished into the white.

In a stunning display of acrobatics that no one would see, D landed precariously balanced between two jagged spikes, feet propped at an angle, his sword already slid back into its sheath. Without a word he leapt to the bath and flew down the mountain to find the camp in chaos.


	14. Trust, Distrust

A/U: Is anyone still reading this...?

**A Dhampir Story  
Chapter XIV**

The Slayer's Army was accustomed to fights sprung by them, to battles they themselves initiated. They won because they had always struck first and they had always been ready. They had grown a monstrous ego collectively; it gave some of them a euphoric feeling of godliness, of sheer invincibility. But they could not have been prepared for the sheer number of enemies swarming down on them from the very mountains they thought would protect them. The winged monstrosities bore massive holds in their abdomens filled with rows of teeth, and talons that could carve chunks out of steel. Their wingbeats rumbled en masse like rolling thunder; their hungry eyes flashed as they flew by close to the firelight, then disappeared as the avians darted back into the snowy darkness.

There were about one-hundred-and-eighty warriors all together. The sooner they awoke, the better off they were. Those who woke late suffered an untimely fate or at the very least a disabling injury. The valiant ones with long-range weapons valiantly picked off the creatures that drifted into the firelight. The man who had the enormous cannon let loose with a hailstorm of ten thousand degree laser fire. Burning creatures fell to the earth, roasted, and twitched in their final throes.

When the swirling white curtain parted, a figure in black emerged from the waiting darkness as if the night had birthed him. He flew headlong into the chaotic battles, noting with grim satisfaction that only a few actually had died. He also took note that a hastily formed defensive formation had been thrown together, a tight-knit circle, within a wider circle, and smatterings of people fighting off solo or in desperate groups. The dhampir found Zhou with his eyes; the Easterner was fighting alongside the ones who had organized the concentric circle formation.

D made a straight, unerring line toward a harried group straining to fend themselves off from their injuries and the monsters which seemed to come in vaster numbers as the battle waged on from seconds to minutes. His sword was the first to make contact with a massive winged specimen that swooped too low for comfort. The talons severed first, loosing a shower of blood. Then the monster screamed as its limned an arc through the snow out of sight; its body boomed through the rock formations on the mountain side.

Incapsuled in the mountain range, flashes of multicolored gunfire filled the air, giving brief, gruesome flashes of the battle that fit themselves together in a mishmash of horrors that made no sense. If one had to fit together the flashes in order to make a moving picture, one would see D in one frame, then several hundred feet away from where he had been before, making a direct line into the center of the melee. The amazing thing: he had moved so far when the flashes were taken only a second apart. He was a black spot jumping all around the night, as elusive as a moth.

The encounter was resolved in half an hour. For some, it was just a little exercise to break up the monotony. For others, the resolution could not have come sooner. In the end, census counted they had lost many of the last twenty who had joined with them. The shadows were lifting slowly as the rays of day came pouring over the edges of the stony chalice. The greatest threat now was exhaustion and loss of sleep. There were pills for bursts of energy to get through the work ahead, but less extraordinary men would still need to catch up on the sleep lost during the fighting.

"This is pretty bad," a rough voice muttered from D's left hand as he walked among the others to observe the damage with chillingly empty eyes. The parasite, smugly appreciative of the attack, seemed impressed. "I hope that's not the last we'll see of those guys! Come on, you gotta admit that was pretty fun!" D's only response was clenching his left hand and sliding it out of sight under his cloak.

D found the Easterner organizing efforts to see to the wounded and to pack, since it was morning and the safest time to travel was during the daylight. Zhou was tying a bandage around a deep incision after he had a moment to rest. He mixed mint and herbs and placed it around and inside the wound to keep the bloodsmell from attracting further attacks.

"I met a Noble on the mountain," D said loud enough for everyone to hear. It surprised everyone, froze them in their work, their hearts leaping in their breasts to hear the melodious voice adress them for the first time in days. Everyone picked up their heads, and looked at D with mixed emotions. The massive group seemed to shift as one organism, listening and reining in anger and desperation, hope and enduring faith.

"He fled before I could interrogate him any further, but there is no doubt that he came from Dracula's castle as a warning which we may not heed." His encounters with most Nobility in the past had involved killing off a wayward youngster barely a century or two old who had gotten lonely, supped at the neck of a young girl, and aroused the suspicion of a vampiric presence in a community when the army happened to be around. The army usually killed the one, and then found even more. Countless stakes had been driven into countless hearts, countless heads lopped off and mouths stuffed with garlic flowers. But a real Noble encounter required more skill than just knowing just where to drive the stake with the hammer. It required a hell of a lot more courage than any average adventurer.

D had lost a Noble in the snow. That boded ill news. But D wasn't done. He had reached a point; he realized this was too personal to involve all of these people, though each had their own reasons for coming along and swearing their weapons toward the kill. It would bring everyone a peace of mind and happy stories to tell if they succeeded. But the bare bones of the situation was, if they could but survive it would be some accomplishment. D had every idea to estimate that most of them would die - and that was being optimistic. They could still go home as cowards in their hearts, or stay and die fruitlessly before they even reached the castle.

"Can you lie with a straight face?" the voice in his hand taunted for his ears alone.

D said, "You all fought very well tonight. But you all know that next time, you'll have to fight harder. You have to be stronger than you ever thought you could be before. Or you will all die." He gave himself a moment, before he said without inflection: "Protect the ones who are injured but are still alive, but if you have to choose... save yourself."

That last set everyone's mood freshly blazing with a new vigor, new ideas, assumptions and doubts in their minds. They were human beings. Collectively, they were prone to look after each other. Boil them down to their constituent pieces, and they were again animals who would fight or run. Did D know this? Zhou peered up at D, chilled to the core. He was familiar with self-preservation. He had lost an eye in order to save the rest of himself from sharing a similar fate. What scared him gave him strength to fight harder. He had watched men fall prey to the fear instilled in their very minds by the Nobility... and had given himself up to it only once before, scarcely escaping with himself intact. Entire villages turned on each other, tearing apart homes and killing innocent lives in order to find the Noble before the monster ended them all. Nobility would watch as though it was an amusing sport to be savored; a single thought could provide months of entertainment, even years of fueding to fuel the long hours of the night with entertainment.

He felt the first inkling of the same fear weedling its way into his mind. He knew it for what it was; as D matured into his father's power, the Noble aspect that lurked in his genes became a palpable cloud of choking fear. It was beginning to show signs of affecting the men and women around him, who had once regarded him as a capable and endearing leader. They could no more change their perception of him than they could turn night into day.

What Zhou feared: the thought that he, too, was falling prey to the natural fear bred into humanity. He could not form a single thought about D without feeling a tickle of anxiety. So therefore he could not guage D's mood as well as he could, nor could he approach him with the same fatherly warmth. He was alien; he was wrong; he was _Nobility_, and that's all his mind needed to understand.

The army's spirits lifted once they got moving again. But the usual joking and laughing behind D's back was subdued. Zhou rode a horse up alongside D's, pinning him with his eye.

"What." It wasn't a question.

"If you pull away from everyone, they won't believe in the cause simply because you don't believe in them." He tried to reach him on grounds of morality; it might draw D away from that terrifying existential precipice he overlooked. "Why did you say that?"

"Because it's true," D said, tightening his hands on the reins just a little.

"What happened to fighting alongside each other? What happened to believing we could do this?"

"I'm responsible for each and every man and woman with me." His voice was stony, ancient. He bowed his head. "If they hate me because of what I am, how can they believe me even if I tell them we will make it? I have to get them to the castle before they turn on me. Already, every death is my fault. Every misfortune: my doing. I can't be held responsible for my blood, or what it can do to everyone around me. I will defend myself to the death. And they will, too."

Zhou fell away, silently contemplating the gravity of D's obvious dilemma. Even if the youth did say that he would be blamed, even if it wasn't his fault, he would still believe it was his own doing that wrought their end.

Even though he was human himself, he didn't dare look behind him. He was afraid of others too.

* * *

The landscape became more painfully familiar. The lake came into sight, a glittering sheet under the sun. Trees swayed in the wind, blocking the sight of the Refuge. Some earlier snowfall had melted away on a particularly hot day. Demons and monsters lurked in the woods lining the road, and sharp eyes alone saved one or two unwary people from disappearing on the spot. Mudholes held up the army for grueling minutes of pulling, shoving, sweating before they could continue again. D always waited just at the next bend in the road, looking straight ahead. He had not said anything else to anyone for three days and nights, always in the shadows, looking away as if there was something else he had forgotten to do. Day by day he became more distracted. By afternoon on the third day they came to a fork on the road. D had stopped in the middle of the road still astride his horse, but not to consult a map. The line of wagons, horses, and warriors ground to a halt again, complaints bubbling like steam from a super-hot teakettle. A minute went by.

Someone shouted, "Hellooo. Earth to leader. Can't remember the way home?" The voice had a tinge of taunting to it. It won a few chuckles. Zhou glared at the person before he caught up to the silent rider in black.

"I know what you are thinking," Zhou said, his heart aching harder than ever. Down the road to the left for a few yards, there was an old worn sign overgrown with bushes marking a corner. Just beyond that, the trees were cut back from the fence where there stood guards to protect the children playing outside, enjoying the warm day before winter fully clamped down for the next few months. At least, that's how it looked in Zhou's mind. His voice was very quiet, almost a hum. Birds sang in the forest. The temptation to press him further was there, just like D must have felt. Or didn't feel, in some cases. If Rhea was suffering, D could end it only one way: killing his father.

"Just couldn't remember which way," D said aloud, guiding his horse to the right and continuing on. The road twisted like a snake in its death throes, making it take hours longer to get from one point to another than it would by simply taking a straight line. D rode faster, forcing everyone to keep a harder pace. It would be night before they reached the end of the road, and only D could really say what might be there. The road was dryer, at least, and almost totally flat as if it was paved. It was a welcome change after mudholes and puddles. The trees were still tall, closing in over their heads, a dark green corridor. The mind-torturing road seemed endless; one began to question whether they were on the right track or just on a fake road paved to confuse them, or worse, lead them to their inevitable doom.

D called back, "We're almost to the end." He slowed down, hoofbeats falling heavily in the stillness. The jubilation ended quickly since the end of the road meant that D remembered this road well and they could already feel the shadow of Castle Dracula crushing them from the distance. The road straightened for thirty feet before it ended; the forest halted almost as suddenly. Trees became bushes that became straggled patches of grass... and then pale white, packed sand. Ten miles of sand that, in the distance, concluded in a black spot that smeared the sky with smoke from its spires. The sight alone cast everyone in a silently terrified mood. There was no telling which terrified them more - the unknown track of sand or the castle at the end of it.

"Now what?" a driver of a wagon almost whispered.

"Let's put up camp," D suggested gently as if to answer.

They camped on the road, cut away some trees to make room and to make the perimeter. The bristling mass of humanity clung to the vestiges of the undying, hovering on the verge of being completely out of their element. Who knew, as night fell, what sort of new horrors would torment them in the dark long before they realized what was happening? The danger they percieved not only came from the barren wasteland but within yards. Reaching out, they could touch the threat they felt drawing closer than ever. The precarious situation with the young man in black became colder and colder. They had to have been tricked, some thought. They were led by the dozens to fight a futile war, to feed a hungry father. Their blood to placate a disillusioned lord.

Had D come all this way to betray each and every one of them? What was the passage of time to a dhampir like D, who was nearly as immortal as his father? They had been led like blind mice to feed at the table of the most vile serpent. Their lives equaled nothing to him. They felt his presence crush their spirits. They heard the animal lurking inside when he spoke, even with his most sultry quiet voice. He could fool the Easterner, but they had a plan. They'd smarten him up before the night was out, and get to the dhampir bastard before it was too late.

* * *

Enveloping the hunter was the soft darkness of night. As he pondered his next movement against his father, the moonlight poured from a cloudless night sky glittering also with stars. His lips never parted, never moved, as if nothing could coax a smile or a word out of him again. He was standing four steps out into the sandy emptiness and gazing across it. No one dared approach him, but the night was more threatening than anything the dhampir could conjure at that moment. But at that moment, while they were thinking of ways to free the Easterner of the young man's influence, others paid attention to the dhampir as he gazed forlornly toward the flickering horizon.

It was as if heat were still rising from the earth, creating dazzling mirages only for the moonlight. D was still watching with the gentlest of breezes blowing his coat to the left. He seemed to be listening intently to a voice privy to only himself. That being said, he was always that mystery that would go unsolved. He advanced into the white sands alone without anyone stopping him, fearful of what would happen if they followed.

Except one. A tall, dark shadow flickered from the camp and made his way after the dwindling silhouette advancing courageously across the earth. There was no way to follow without being spotted, but somehow this individual felt he had nothing to fear from the vampire hunter. After all, the pursuer thought, the dhampir was going out alone - without his buddy to help him out. He gave chase, willingly going into the maw of the most terrifying beast in the world. He was either very brave, confident, or less believable, ignorant of the danger. Even an idiot would not be able to ignore the oppressive weight of evil seeping out of the very grains of sand swept into waves in the distance, dunes that glittered like thousands of bones ground into dust. It would not be too far-fetched to assume that most of the sand was exactly what it looked like - years of corpses ground into dust. And yet the man that followed D seemed to single-mindedly follow him into danger.

The sand became dunes after twenty minutes of walking. The castle seemed no closer, but the man following the dhampir huffed and puffed as quickly as he could. Finally, he could no longer maintain his silence. But when he opened his mouth to shout after him to wait, his breath was halted by the sight taking up his field of vision.

Just ahead the sand became more uneven. The follower thought irritably of the task of changing out his regular tires on his truck for the ones more suitable for this kind of terrain. He gave a huff, and he watched the man-child dhampir lift his left hand and point his palm outward toward the quivering horizon. He clambered up after him, a look on his face that bespoke of mild irritation and a little fear. Maybe rightly so, but he was not about to let the dhampir get away to let his daddy know that they were on their way. Practically on his doorstep!

Whatever he had up his sleeve, he would not get one syllable of that warning to reach the ears of that damn Noble--

But as he began to reach for his weapon, he was frozen by the unholy glow captured like drops of blood in D's eyes. His gaze was not entirely directed at the man, from the corners of his gorgeous eyes, but a haunted tension made his lips taut and enriched the expression of desperation that lit on his face just for a moment. The soldier looked at him once, then peered over the top of the mountainous dune, his heart hammering wildly in his breast as he observed what was occuring in the midnight landscape.

The sand dunes collapsed at the center of a wide, swirling maelstrom of sand and debris in the middle of the earth. It was about forty feet wide. The noise reached his ears that moment, when he realized the bizarre phenomenon had just begun. The roar grew louder, making the sand shudder and tremble beneath him. In fact, the dune he shared with the dhampir bastard had begun to shudder and dissolve a little as the seconds passed. His eyes watered as sand was hurtled into the air. He watched as the enormous maw of sand swirled forever and ever. His tongue dried up in his mouth.

Then he looked back up at D, who looked back down at him just for a second. His voice penetrated the roar of the beast beneath the sand, "It's a sand squid. It'd destroy us all before we even made it across." He sounded angry.

Well, that's just fine, the man thought furiously. Now we'll have to go around, into those damn woods, where who-knew-what was waiting to eat us. He stood up slowly, his feet a little uneven, his breathing growing harsher as he felt the hunger of the massive beast begin to find its direction.

He turned around and ran back down the sand dune. D turned without stirring his feet, his eyes saddened as something burst through the sand, like a tentacle, and wrapped itself once, twice, three times around the man's body. He barely had time to scream before he was dragged through the sand with enough force to snap his spine, disappearing beneath the earth. Then the storm of hunger disappeared beneath the sand, sated for a few minutes as it took its prey into the deep, compacted darkness.

Only then did D walk down the dune without much trouble, approached the camp and walked into it, sliding past the caustic stares. Letting ire slide off his body like the grains of sand dropping from his coat, he approached the main campfire. Raised voices preceded him. He heard angered shouts, smelled the unmistakable hair-raising scent of blood. He did not have to push his way through the men and women standing around the hubbub; they had already moved, loathe to touch him or be touched by mistake.

A man with blood spattering his shirt and the blunt edge of his weapon shouted, "You leave him right the hell alone!" He stood near Zhou, who was unaffected by the hatred pouring from the people around the two men.

"What's going on?" D asked, stepping into their midst.

"We're--"

"--damn half-blood bastard, leading us all this way!"

A cacaphony of voices rose to challenge him, fearless, and yet charged by their fear.

The man with the bloodied shirt, Harvy, glowered at the group, sweat pouring down his neck. He had the look of a madman, but stalwartly defended the aging Easterner with devestating fury. At his feet lay five men, either injured or dead. D looked coldly from one man to the other, before he seemed to reach a decision. Gauging from the scent of anger slowly overwhelming the stench of terror, he had to speak and speak quickly. A man who was angry was dangerous, but not as dangerous as a man who was afraid. The one who controlled that fear, guided its direction, would be the most powerful figure in these men's lives.

"I don't care what you're fighting about... even though I can guess. But I thought I should tell you that we aren't likely to cross the white dunes at dawn. There's a beast beneath the sand... greater than all of our strength combined." He looked down pointedly. "Even if those who are injured fought to keep it at bay as well."

"What is it?" A quavering voice shouted; a woman's.

"A sand squid. Possibly the largest specimen to have ever lived."

"You're full of shit!"

"No way! Something that big can't possibly live that long! It has to die, hasn't it?"

"--what the hell's it eat?"

The people had drawn the attention of those who were trying to get some shut-eye. But they didn't draw in close. A few still stood guard, but bent an ear toward the voices, fearful and anxious.

Zhou touched the edge of the bandage on his arm, looking more exhausted than he had in days. Perhaps it was because he had been doing all the work D had neglected: managing the emotional tone of the group, organizing human efforts, delegating jobs. And tonight he had failed. Harvy alone had to come to stand at Zhou's defense, perhaps because of the bond they had developed. It wasn't by chance.

"We'll have to go around," D said. "Unless you want to fight it yourselves. You decide." He turned toward Zhou and walked toward him - past him. He entered the tent where Zhou traditionally slept.

He had gone inside out of sight for the water. He found a cup next to the water jug and poured some. Then he plucked a pill from the bottle and dropped it in, mixed it with his finger. Zhou had entered just in time to see him down the glass feverishly, his eyes a faint tinge of red.

"Deron, if you want us to go around the beasts lair, we can--"

"I'm not making them do anything they don't want to. If they decide for themselves, then they've no one else to blame."

"But you're the leader. They trust you."

"No one trusts a dhampir. They come with me or they try to cross the desert. It's their decision." His eyes hardened, but the red had gone away. He drank nothing else for the rest of the night.


	15. Bumrush

**A/N:** Sorry for the late update. This chapter was like pulling teeth. Then again... drama in life doesn't allow for much creativity, does it? SURPRISE ENDING. I bet half of you just scrolled down to the bottom to read it, didn't you? Cheaters.

**A Dhampir Story  
****Chapter XV**

In the predawn light, the militia force that had gathered together to assassinate the lord of all vampires split in twain. One might say the chance of survival also had split. But instead of complaining, the ones who chose to go with D seemed almost smug about their choice. They looked on those who would chance the desert landscape's hidden monster with amusement and some pity. The dhampir youth rode forth on horseback, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth as the symbiot that inhabited his left hand sneered at his choice, the creature's voice dripping with nothing but venomous disdain.

"Do you honestly think this half-baked bumrush of yours is going to work? You've been planning this for years; at some point you would have realized what a stupid idea it really was. What a waste!" The symbiot cackled. "But what fun it'll be to see these warmongering losers get hacked limb from limb. Especially your Easterner friend. But you don't care about him anymore, do you?"

The psychological torment going on within Deron's mind was far worse than any of the words the symbiot could conjure. Regardless if the thing could see into his mind, pick apart his secrets, stir the worries plagueing him within. This was not his way. He was stoic and calm. Zhou painstaking taught him to face his worries, attack them logically, then get them quickly out of his way so he could see to the problems facing him in reality. But every time he tried to envision facing his father in the permenantly moonlit halls of the castle, he saw instead the hot, thick darkness of Rhea's room. His father's body twisted, on top of her, his lips tightly bound to her throat with his eyes rolled lazily in his direction. Watching, smiling in his own sadistic way.

His tongue unstuck itself from his pallet and he licked his lips, ducking his head to hide the gesture and his shame. Until he reached the castle, he wouldn't be free from that image. The thought of his eyes locked on him, and Rhea's head tilted back in sinister ecstacy...

It urged him to ride faster. He would end her pain. And his.

Through the woods there was a narrow path. People had to duck to avoid getting struck with branches. Vehicles were left behind to preserve fuel for the ride back. And the darkness drew in thickly around them as they circuited around the desert. D seemed uncaring for the suspiciously shaped shadows lurking just beyond the path's edge. Someone who stepped too deeply into the verge disappeared... and no one dared to speak in the sepuchral silence. His hoofbeats were the only thing left unmuffled.

Abrubtly, a terrible scream filled the air. A horse fell to his hindquarters and its head vanished down the throat of a massive wolf, some yards down the line of soldiers. The man swung a massive broadsword wildly at the massive lupine figure still slowly dragging the horse, himself included, through the thick brambles.

"Get off, you goddamn idiot!" shouted a woman who had been riding behind him. She raised her rifle to take aim, but her body was overtaken by a lupine figure.

D's sword whistled beautifully, the wolf's body thudding into halves on the earth. Its head still snapped and foamed, its teeth taking the woman's hand. In seconds, she fell to the ground, clutching her stump of a hand, fur sprouting from the naked skin showing on her body.

The steel sword in D's hand took her head. His horse screamed in fear at the smell of the werewolves leaping from the shadows, then vanishing with a victim.

Without a word, Zhou watched D leap from his mount and plunge after them into the forest. The Easterner was wielding his sword just as deftly, cutting werewolves down as they came within reach. They were everywhere - the woods must have been swarmed with them, as well as food to keep them satisfied. But hunger for the flesh of men always kept a werewolf up at night, baying at the unforgiving moon. A feast was presented before them; they would not cease until the earth was soaked with human blood.

He noticed, with his heart already pounding in his chest and fear scorching him from within, that the bite delivered from these wolves instigated the change almost immediately. Sometimes the wolves were eating their own kind halfway thruogh the change induced by the bite merely seconds before. He needed to be careful... and if he couldn't keep up with the wolves this way, he would have to resort to his most sacred of techniques.

Gunfire and screaming blocked out any other sound. He slipped into the trees, his sword sliding into its sheath. As long as he stayed hidden, the werewolves would ignore him long enough for what he needed to do.

Fiercely slaying werewolves left and right, D hadn't the slightest clue just yet what Zhou was doing. His sword sang, dripping jewels of blood, sweetnesses he would never allow himself to enjoy. The slaughter continued, in the forest and along the path. Those smart enough to run kept a watch to their backs. The others were left behind - a sacrifice for the greater good.

D wiped his sword with a soft exhalation of breath, noted the twitching bodies of villagers long since become beasts forever reverting to their human shapes. His heart couldn't be bothered to feel pity or regret. They had become monsters; D knew that if he became like them, he would want someone to put an end to his existence before he brought anyone to insufferable harm.

He walked back toward the path and found his horse more or less unharmed. As he slid into the saddle to recover the distance between him and the others, he noticed Zhou was not among those who were running. He swallowed his anguish, decided to continue on ahead. Zhou would have wanted that most of all. Don't stop. Keep going on ahead.

"We're halfway there!" Harvy shouted, his eyes bright with battle fury. He had come out of the battle once again unscathed, but he favored his left leg. Must have fell or twisted it. D still looked beautifully noble on horseback, and the sight of D coming out of the forest without werewolves chasing him was a relief and a dear sight to sore eyes.

"How many are left?" D asked, not allowing himself to breathe life to ask where Zhou was.

"Twenty... twenty-five." Harvy grimaced, rubbing his left leg and leaning heavily on his massive weapon. "As far as I can see, no more o' them damn mangy mutts are coming after us. But I haven't seen Zhou-"

"Then we're moving on. I won't let Father send anything else while there's still daylight. He's trying to stall us. Can you walk?"

"I can try, sir!" Harvy lifted his chin up high. "Just a flesh wound. Damn gunfire got my leg." His eyes lifted toward the canopy, then he shook his head slowly. "If you want, I can stay behind... I'll just hold everyone up."

"Get on."

"What?"

D dismounted before handing the reins to the big man. "Get on. I'll walk." Without another comment he walked off, his lips in a tightly pursed line. "Everyone else, we're moving on. Keep up with me, or you may die."

"We'll all die either way." The mutter went unnoticed. Speed was prudent.

The shadows pressed in as they drew near the castle from the forest side. It was already close to midday. D walked ahead with the grace of a demi-God, prince of the night that fell so easily here. It was almost midday, indeed, but the sky was choked black with thick clouds. Not a drop of sunlight dripped through to illuminate the way. Instead, electric-powered torches were lit at the front gates where a cobble-stoned path was laid. The tall gates were charred wrought-iron, spiked at the top and around the bottoms. The withered skulls of previous enemies were on display as casually as the banners flying high on the courtyard walls.

D halted and leaned heavily on the wall with his left hand, his eyes squeezing shut. Burning tears dripped from his face, and each time he tried to catch a breath to continue on, more horrifying memories poured out of him. Inspired by the sight of the gates, he was suffering...

Harvy's heavy, meaty hand fell on his shoulder.

"Sir?"

"I haven't been here in... years. The last time was..." He remembered. Didn't want to. Didn't care about it, but regardless, it was repressed and needed an out. "...Father drove me away." His body ached with the familiar stings of a whip on his skin. The sense of despair at walking alone in a world his father had preached was so cruel and cold toward the Nobility and dhampirs. He had despaired in the heat of the sun, his young form unable to withstand its torture.

"Be careful, boyo," said a hissing voice in his consciousness. "Don't fall into his mind trap, hm? Or this'll be over pretty damn quick!"

"Are you okay?" Harvy lifted his hand after D straightened. His mind was still buzzing with memories, but he could see clearly now.

He turned to face the gate and drew his sword. Not a single eye caught the movement, but the sparks the sword produced from striking the harsh metal gate were blinding. He glared at the courtyard and beyond it, toward the stained glass windows depicting various levels of torment toward humanity. The bloodlust that plagued all Nobility except the very old, coupled with the inane tortures of a sexual nature. Anyone who found them an interesting touch to the decor had to have the same sickness eating away at their minds as the very creature who haunted the hallways inside.

The towers were an architect's nightmare; twisted spirals of stairways all around, where silent, still statues kept watch that might be actual living sentinels. Only D knew that they were all of Dracula's conscripted aerial guards, beings with the gift of flight and a thirst for savagery unmatched by any earthbound foe. And what foul dogs prowled the courtyard? He caught the movement of great black dogs chained to the walls near the doorways. That wasn't all. He would have been a fool to think that Dracula no longer employed the use of various horrifying traps to ensnare unwary trespassers.

It was grotesque in nature, but beautiful when one took away the context of the images.

D's eyes turned a faint tint of red at the sight of them.

"Look, maybe we can find another way in." Harvy looked anxiously around him, holding the horse's reins in one fist.

"There is none." D pressed his hand against the gate. His lips moved but no one heard anything he said. As he closed his left hand's fingers around one bar of the gate about chest height, the bar began to... change and twist. As though superheated, the bar melted and collapsed into mush at the base of the gate.

"Again," he said to no one. He repeated it until there was a sizable hole for one person to get through. A young woman with an energy spear crawled through first, followed by the rest of the men excluding Harvy, who D turned to and said, "Wait here for Zhou... if he does come. If you hear nothing in an hour... go home."

"Hey! You can't-" But already D had already slipped in between the bars like a phantom, his left hand carefully concealed. He would not here Harvy's disputed position as guard and watcher. One man in front of the gates of Castle Dracula was a ridiculous prospect. Perhaps D had a lot more trust for Harvy than the big man believed. His heart skipped a beat as he watched him glide, step-stepping softly, alongside the others, until Harvy turned away before he became too transfixed.

"He's becomin' nothin' short of a man now," Harvy murmured. "Better be careful when I look at him now... Or I'll be like those dames gettin' all hot an' bothered at the mere sight of him."

Now beyond the gate, standing in the courtyard, not quite within sight of the enormous dogs that seemed even larger on this side of the walls, D quietly ordered everyone from walking too far forward. His peridot blue eyes flickered across each of the flagstones leading to the front door. He eyed the dogs. Then he pressed his lips together and reached toward his belt for his money pouch. Coins jingled softly until he stepped forward alone.

"Wait," he ordered. "I'll make a path."

He closed his eyes, trying to reconstruct the way his father had walked along the path when he fancied it. D himself had walked this path only once; once, when he was small, banished from the inner circle of the Nobility Elite and his father's "love". There were inner courtyards where the lord would entertain his guests, where Deron could go only if he had an escort. The young dhampir child Deron had played there with the vampire he had fought with in the snowy mountains. This courtyard was not his domain. But the flagstones were special. They were traps if one did not know where to step. Dracula had stopped changing them since no one had threatened his dominion in centuries. But there was no telling that the ones he'd kept had stopped working or not.

Using some of his coins, he flicked them out onto the flagstones. One. Two. Three. He stepped confidently on the first three before the next coin landed lightly.

A conflageration of light and fire exploded on that spot, spreading out but barely enough to touch D's body. He lifted his left hand and waved at the flames that threatened to sear the brim of his hat. And one by one, everyone followed, flinching at the triggered traps, ranging from shrieking spears, more explosive conflagerations, or unleashing of poisonous gas that filled the very air everyone breathed. Again, D made use of his sword or his left hand to dispel the danger. His eyes remained cold, lifeless unburning coals in his skull while he lead them to the front doors of Dracula's domain. The fear from the mortals that followed his path was palpable; each time he breathed, they did not, as if to see what his next breath would bring: death or precious few more seconds of life.

And when they came within chain-length's reach of the massive dogs, D leapt. The frothing canines followed him, as he was the first to be within range of their fangs. He drew his sword in midflight. When he touched ground, the dogs fell to pieces beside him. Twitching. Frothing. Still moaning, as if hunger would drive them until there was nothing left of them.

Finally, he turned to see who had survived. A man had fallen behind during one of the gas traps and was now coughing and vomiting voluminously on the flagstones; each heave brought up an unhealthy amount of blood. Then he slowly rolled to his side and went still, bleeding from his eyes, nose, ears and mouth.

Harvy gulped and looked back toward D, unable to stomach what he just saw. "Can we get going now? Can you get through the door?"

"It's not locked," D said, pushing both doors at once, the massive things groaning on their enormous, rusted hinges. On closer inspection, the grand doors had seen years of pockmarks, laser burns, bullet holes of varying sizes, and yet still one had to wonder why the doors were now simply unlocked, permitting entrance by these would-be assassins. In the old days, the traps were deactivated in the courtyard to allow entire carriages to enter the main hall in case of daylight, so they could disembark without discomfort.

Footsteps echoed into infinity, casting a pall of deepest intrusion on something like a tomb. No one stood with them in the massive main hall, with pillars decorated at odd intervals with twisted forms of angels and devils all in various configurations of copulation. Perhaps it was celebrating the mating of darkness and light. One only had to look closer to realize most of the devils seemed to be devouring their lovers with a terrible joy.

The marble floor still shined as if it had been recently polished. But as noted before, they were completely alone. Harvy whistled silently in appreciation of the pure grandness... but that was only after an obligatory check for danger, which there appeared to be none immediately present. Dracula could have been watching from anywhere, his presence permeating every stone... as if his undying, twisted soul had rooted itself into the very fiber of the castle. How could you hunt prey that was everywhere?

Until that point, no one had taken any further steps inward except D. No one had even thought to pay him any attention, since there were bigger issues to be addressed. Wrapping around an enormous painting of the lord of the manse, spiralling stairs leading east and west lead toward the second floor. D was not yet interested in the stairway, but the giant work of art dominating almost that entire wall where the stairs became invisible beyond the reach of the supulchre candle-light, as if his father wanted to hide the 2nd floor from his wayward guests. The painting, massing several hundred feet into the air, was not well lit which explained why no one else may have noticed who it was. But D devoured it with his eyes, the way the figure's stance was full of all that arrogance; powerful shoulders swept back, blackened eyes rimmed in hungry red pinned to the viewer, generous mouth smiling, inviting the world to its crash and burn. It was Dracula in his 'younger' days, when he had been as sick and twisted a creature as he was when he had apparently led the vampire race single-handedly into the pinnacle of its reign. That was why they called him the Vampire King. He had laid waste to cities single-handedly, driven mankind to near extinction before he could be convinced to spare enough to survive on and continue for the generations.

"Was it his plan to actually starve out the vampires?" murmured the parasite in his left hand. "Or maybe he just really... didn't like humans at all, even for a paltry meal." The parasite cackled darkly while D approached the stairs, alone, leaving his human flock untended for now. But just in case, he flashed them a singular look.

"Two of you come with me to search the second floor. The rest of you look around." In the end, Harvy and another man went with him. They all advanced on the stairs, flanked D, their weapons directionless since they had no idea what new threat might come at them. But their senses remained alert, painfully straining to pick up any sound. Mostly they were paying close attention to the dhampir, whose senses could outmatch both of theirs put together.

The left arching stairway led to a series of rooms filled with gorgeous nightblooming flowers, with huge bay windows that opened to let the night air waft within. Some rooms were empty, as if they'd been cleared out utterly. D checked all of them, passing his left hand over each door first. The whole process of checking each room took nearly an entire hour. When they returned to the main hall to go up the right archway, they encountered the other party who waved and shrugged because - eerily - they had found nothing to kill in all of the other rooms.

"Damn it! I wanted a fight, but there's not a damn thing in here. I can't fucking believe it!" said the man to D, glaring as though it was his fault. "What's going on here, Pasty? Does your daddy live here or did he bail?"

"No." D froze both Harvy and the man with another stare. "He's waiting. He just wants us to come to him. He won't find us. He's already bored with us for taking too long already."

"How... How can you tell?"

"You would all be dead by now. He likes to draw out the game in order to make it more interesting." D didn't smile at all, talking with every intention of giving fair warning to all. His only hope now was that they would run just to save themselves; the longer he remained in this enormous castle, his own trepidation about their chances of survival caused him to waver in his unshakeable resolve. It was hardly the time to back down.

"Let's look up here, then," Harvy said in a low voice, drawing the tension away from their failure to find what they sought. He walked past D, making it a point not to look directly at him as he added, "There's no point hanging around here chewin' the fat, is there?" He failed to sound nonchalant, only succeeding in sounding plagued by anxiety, his voice quivering and timid like a young boy caught in the middle of an ugly divorce.

D caught up with his emotions, bottled them appropriately to be dealt with later. Right now, he appeared to be gathering his strength, his hands loosely clenched, his eyes as steely and emotionless as a mirror. The dhampir walked past Harvy, and to everyone who watched seemed to be possessed of a sudden sureness of direction. He walked purposefully past the first pair of doors, and after the third it became clear he was going somewhere. And without warning he began to run, drawing the sword with the mellifluous sound. Toward a door looming darkly at the end of the right wing of the manse, his own heart drumming in his ears, he flew, leaving the others huffing and puffing behind him.

The wide double-doors waiting flew off their hinges in cleanly sliced segments, opening on a well-lit room full of electric candlebra, soft blues and purples, and a large, welcoming bed that held one occupant. D hadn't made a move toward that bed yet after the others piled into the room to join him.

"What the hell?" Harvy muttered, then risked a glance at D, wondering why the man hadn't moved at all. His own doubts about this whole affair tripled - just another reason to get the hell out of here... but when there was no description for the way D's eyes had gone cold and empty, no adjective to place on the way his face seemed absolutely devoid of emotion but yet painted with unrestricted pain, it tore at Harvy's heart.

Everyone looked at the occupant of the bed. The blankets appeared to have been painstakingly tucked around her body, and the woman was asleep, her eyes closed with a soft, precarious smile on her lips. Nestled just beneath her naked breasts a smallish figure was fast asleep also. The baby's arms was tucked up close to its chest, its head of black hair ethereal blowing in a breeze from the window. Neither of them had been troubled by D's boisterous entrance at all. The room remained quiet but for the soft rustle of armor and gentle patter of rain on the window sill and the heavy breathing of all present except one.

"Some kind of trick?" someone muttered, looking around slowly, panning his weapon around the room for an enemy. But the armor protecting him suddenly split straight down the middle, opening his body underneath in a violent spray of crimson before he toppled to the ground. The men leapt to find a defensible position, ignoring the woman laying on the bed, and yet another warrior met a similar fate... and shadows seemed to twist and writhe, filling the room with a deeper darkness than simple shadows could provide. The darkness had a multitude of red, hungry eyes... but less possessed by hunger than with an inconsolable rage. It had no form, no discernable shape. The mass crawled along the floor, hung from the ceiling, the walls, lashing out with speed uncatchable by the human eye. Blood spattered the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, painting it a thick coating of dripping vermillion.

Harvy fired his gun wildly, aiming for the darkness, but it seemed futile. It never seemed to touch it and if it did, it did not impede the onslaught in the least. The blasts only ended the peaceful, maternal silence that filled the room. The horde of darkness rose up, devouring the first enemy that it touched. D turned, letting the sword speak for him as he raised his arms and let the blade fall on anything that wasn't human. A shrill, bodiless shrieking filled the room... part pain, part hatred. The darkness withdrew, then leapt on D when everyone, including Harvy, was incapacitated by missing limbs or death. D remained alone, his sword flying, until the shadows convened around him, entangling his arms and legs, smothering him from sight completely. From within the web of shadows, the sword whistled, creating a spiral of blades that ended almost as soon as it began. The shadows fell away slowly. D was on the floor, blood soaking to his skin, his eyes an off-shade of purple and shining brightly.

The woman remained untouched, as if protected by something else. But they could not remain asleep with a battle being fought right before them. The woman awoke with a start, and protectively curled her arms around the child, which opened both eyes and watched with a kind of fascination at the horror before it. The woman looked at D with a horrified sense of recognition. "Deron..." Rhea held her baby tightly, recoiling until she was sitting up with her back against the soft pillows.

The dhampir looked at her with nothing but sadness, before the movement of the shadows drew his attention again.

It convulsed on the floor, collected together, and appeared to gather itself to form the definitive shape of a man. It straightened to stand upright and lost the vagueness of black... and became a man with pulsing red eyes and a smiling mouth. He was handsome, quite a bit more real than the painting in the main hall. His hair was pulled back from his face, long and straight, and the long red coat hung from his shoulders without his arms in the sleeves.

"Deron!" the woman cried. "Look, you shouldn't have come here."

"Nonsense, my love," said Dracula. "I invited him here to visit. He was simply rude and did not knock. That is a forgivable oversight. You are welcome to stay, boy." His lips curved into a larger smile, as he reached toward Rhea and the child. She gathered the gown and slipped her arms into it, then stood with the child in her arms.

Peacefully, the pair embraced with the child protectively between them. Deron's eyes remained cold and furious. His left hand pressed against his opposite shoulder. He stood up slowly, the sword in his hand dripping with blood.

"Deron, look what's happened. He blessed me with a child. I thought I was barren, but I have a child of my own! And it was all because of him, see?"

"...Deron. You have a little sister now." Dracula stroked the child's soft hair. "That is what I had intended to show you. But from the look on your face, it would appear you are less than pleased."


	16. Caged Animal

Author's Note: Enjoy this heartily. I worked hard to try and do what I love, to write. It's difficult, but the words are coming back to me... like a cave pool emptied, that must slowly fill from the subterranean drip from above.

**A Dhampir Story**

**Chapter XVI**

The men on the floor swam in pools of their own blood, most of them already still and their bodies growing cold in the unnatural chill of Dracula's presence. All but the soft plush bed were spattered and drenched with blood, and D stood in the macabre as if it was not worthy of an iota of his attention. All his thoughts and senses were bent on the loving pair in the middle of the room, his singularly steely blue eyes fixed in a silent remorse coupled with a bristling rage. Dracula's arms were pinned around the woman, holding him before him lovingly, as well as providing himself a decent sheild - he knew instinctively that D would not yet harm a human that was unarmed, much less a newborn child.

D was cornered in a trap of his own morals. His body quivered in turns with agony, the wounds suffered by Dracula's assault bleeding without any attendence. Pools of it collected beneath him, his cloak hanging in it and slowly wicking the redness into the black fabric and turning it a darker black than shadows. Dracula's piercing red eyes stayed fixed on him, as if expecting some word or some reaction other than the unmoving steady gaze piercing back at him. Stained purple as loss of blood forced a strong thirst in him.

"Still fighting it?" Dracula's voice pierced the unnatural quiet. It was as if they were the only pair in the room. He lovingly caressed the child's brow with his unnaturally long fingers, tipped with sharpened nails. But no harm ever came to the child's head at all.

"What monstrous thing have you done to make this so?" D could barely choke from his bloodied lips. "What have you done?"

Dracula's anger clouded the room with a thickening black hatred peopled with a dozen unblinking crimson eyes. "What do you mean what have I done? Already you grow jealous." Dracula's invisible, slithering touch scratched the surface of D's thoughts, his bloody eyes narrowing to infuriated slits. His heart pounded harder, feeling the unclean touch of his father's mind... and from a far distance, he heard another voice muttering inarticulately in fear. The parasite. He hoped that the creature would figure out a way to hide from Dracula's deep-sinking claws, scraping for his thoughts. If he knew about him, then there'd be no trump card left to D in case he discovered he was not strong enough.

"You aren't happy for me. As if you don't wish the kind of happiness that has been denied me." Dracula's voice betrayed a deep-seated hurt. His hand rose and he gently guided his wife back to her soft, unstained blankets, the mattress noiselessly conforming to her body as she tucked in once again. When he was satisfied that she was warm, sound and safe, he turned toward Deron and whispered something that made the blood on the walls and floors freeze in place... glistening like liquified rubies.

"You are my cursed son. Cursed at birth. You'll live with that burden forever, won't you? So long as you can destroy your own kind." His lips twisted into that unnatural wide grin. Like a man frozen in the coldest of oceans, D sluggishly regained his feet as more blood dribbled from the tips of his fingers, from his clothes, to the floor, joining the blood of his fallen comrades - and who knew exactly what would happen when that unclean comingling of dhampir blood and human blood intermixed?

He already knew what his father had done. Dracula had seen to it. Had seen that Rhea's sterility was not due to her own physiological faults. He'd made love to her on multiple occasions, had probably taken her away from the half-breed haven she had created. That explained why she had not written him anything for so long. It was Dracula's seed that had made this child. All else had failed when her husband had poisoned her, not wanting children but only her. The poison had wrecked her reproductive organs. But Dracula had the power to make her dream come true and had given her at last a child. Her heart was only full of a mother's joy. Who knew how it had really blinded her from everything else happening?

She had eyes only for her newborn. Deron was no longer even a concern to her any more.

D barely formed the thought, What happened to the orphanage? The children living there?

Eili.

His eyes met Dracula's again and his thoughts vanished when he realized he would never know so long as he stayed here. He backed away toward the door, but it was shut and he could only twitch as he felt the cold of Dracula's power envelope him in a cold embrace. When he realized he was crushed against his chest, his eyes seeing only darkness and a universe of red stars, which became eyes as he looked nearer to himself. His limbs were frozen but pained, as if a thousand tiny needles were injecting him with death's own essence. He squeezed his eyes shut, calling forth whatever reserves of will he could muster, but he could see the eyes still.

_You will make us all suffer for our sins, won't you?_ Dracula purred, squeezing his prey slowly. _But you're forgetting someone in your rampage of justice. Are you going to leave yourself out of your handmade vampire apocalypse? Even if you could single-handedly bring down the Nobility, who would be left in the end?_

In his heart, D wished Dracula would simply kill him. But cowardice was not in his blood.

"Sleep for now, my love," Dracula whispered to the woman and child. Then he lifted Deron in both arms and carried him through the wall, which convalesced and rippled like a mirage of smoke. In seconds, the world was drowned in darkness.

----

"So--wait--" Mouka interrupted gently, not wanting to halt the unraveling of this very dark and depressing story. Right at that moment, they were at the edge of the lake in the early dawn light, the snow sparkling and the sky a pale eggshell blue; fragile as if at any moment it would burst apart and let the night into the world again.

D had been talking for quite some time, sitting with his back against the horse, who was pawing at the snow for something to eat until he had put a feedbag on full of grain. He had a recorder hooked to his lapel and he stopped once Mouka had interrupted. Until that point, his voice had captivated even the fox across the lake, its mottled white coat making it nearly invisible but for its ebony eyes fixed on the hunter as he gazed across into the frozen forest.

"How did Rhea become pregnant if she had been sterile?"

"Later on," D said, "I decided to travel - some time much after what had happened - to find out her story. It was her husband who had been poisoning her because he did not want children. He wanted to keep her to himself, not lose the attention he recieved to the duties of raising a child. As a result, she left him in disgrace because her family wanted a grandchild. And she started the orphanage since she was convinced she could honestly have no children of her own. Dr-- My father's flesh and blood is... potent. Unlike most Nobility, he is the father of them all, so he is gifted with a very rare gift indeed."

"He can knock up women?" Mouka forgot that this story was taking place in the past - he was not even sure himself yet if Dracula was yet among the land of the living, only dead, or if he was finally put to rest. And at the same time, if that had been the case, wouldn't all Nobility in the world perish? "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you..."

"It's fine." D's icy gaze locked inward, though he was still looking across the lake toward the winter fox. His eyes finally closed. "I'm just... having a hard time remembering much after that." His hand clenched and unclenched at his side, as if remembering an ancient ache that was long gone but cold weather brought it much discomfort. "Though you may not like to hear this, but I don't actually remember much about what happened. I was a prisoner. And all I know was hunger... and a strong will not to give into it."

The dhampir turned from the fire-eater and gave a slight shake of the shoulders - the first sign that he had shown a real response to the cold. No sooner had Mouka whispered to the tiny candle he had lit than he brushed his fingers over his face to bring in the warmth in his lungs. Fire-breather. His lips were covered with white scar tissue from the dragon's blood that had spilled onto his body when he had once been a traveling journalist, recording the tales of hunter's to inspire his books.

How ironic that he was listening to the best story he had ever heard... and knew that every word of it was true. D would never lie. He knew in his heart without even knowing D very well at all. If he had not wanted Mouka to listen to his story, he would tell him to leave him the hell alone, wouldn't he? He watched as the dhampir walked off. He only then realized he had not continued the story, leaving him aching to hear more.

"H-Hey, where are you going!?"

"To sleep." He needed it. D had looked exhausted. But he had been sleeping A LOT lately, in that same mysterious place where a bed might have been. And it was not contented sleep. Mouka had wondered very often if he should wake him, but the aura in the immediate area warned him to stay clear. The strange creature in D's hand had even told Mouka, surprising him to near hysterics, by saying out of the blue as he watched D dream, "Hey. You better back off if you'd rather not become cube steak."

So he let him go back up toward the house across the top of the snow, making no mark, like a very real ghost.

----

He lay down and closed his eyes. In the same spot as before, only this time he put a sheet up over every window immediate surrounding himself. It would be hard to dig a hole in the permafrost. His eyes closed and he drowned himself in the darkness, feeling a perceptible relief from the sunlight while at the same time dreading the blanket of darkness that came with sleep... and the dreams.

He felt her in the room. The ghost of Rhea, chilling the air a bit more. "Here to help me remember again?"

"You shouldn't," she whispered. "If you can't come back from this without the will any longer-- Do not ask me to help you remember that."

"I want to." His voice was meant to send chills down the spines of the undead. To a ghost, it had just as much of an effect. The phantom woman trembled and closed her own eyes, holding herself as if she could feel the cold just as well as any living mortal. Her ethereal form wavered for a moment, but then it became solid, like an image on a digital camera being refocused quickly.

"I won't ask you why." She brushed back her long hair, then went to his side as he slept on the floor. She sat down, then laid out alongside him, and pressed herself tight to his side, her limbs gently wrapped around him._ My god, he is no more warm than anything else in this room_, she thought, lamenting his sorrow. _Will nothing make him warm?_

"Help me remember, Rhea."

Dreaming took a strange kind of effort. It was striving for the sleep... without forcing himself to do so. He was indeed weary, but weariness alone did not provide him with the need to recall. He wanted to remember... and if he had to reach inside his dreams for those bloodied nightmares that occured in the depths of the castle of Dracula. What happened? What hell had his father condemned him to for his mislead hopes?

----

_Look_, she whispered as he opened his eyes again, and saw a different breed of darkness obscuring his vampiric vision. _Look well, for I won't bear to see this again._

_Thank you._

_Don't thank me just yet._

His back was not cold enough to mute the needles of pain racing up his skin. Fresh blood - from the body suspended before him, hanging limply and barely breathing - filled the room with so much of the smell. The hunger made his gorge rise, but all the same, nausea could never drive away the desire he felt. Aching in his mouth, which was dry and tasteless, his fangs poking into his lower lip. His arms were suspended by thousands of nail-studded irons - so he was both trapped and in constant pain from the nails, driven through each iron, and into his flesh. The wall was rough, jagged stone. No comfort at all to be had if he relaxed against it, but he had anyway, because it was better than trying to stay upright. Even the dull, constant throb of pain had diminished.

And God, his mouth was dry. So very dry. The body above him was blind-folded, and its genitalia was mangled beyond all hope of recognition. The handiwork of the warden of the Count's dungeon. Nothing like this would ever sully the Count's hands, not even the hands of Ramus, his latest infatuation with 'family'. No doubt he had been immediately forgotten as soon as the child was born and found to be healthy.

D could not think about much of anything beyond how to escape. But the longer he languished, each arm suspended at an odd, back-breaking angle, limbs nailed through with pieces of metal and his blood draining to a puddle at his feet, he had no way of getting around the fact that he was, in fact, completely helpless now.

He was wrong. His father had been too strong. He could not do it. It was the lamentable truth and there was nothing he could do to take that moment back when he had left, so many years ago, taking so many poor souls down with him.

_You should have stayed by her side. You should have protected her when he came at night. Fool! Damn fool!_

The body dripped and twitched occasionally, uttering a tongueless moan of nightmarish agony. Each falling droplet of red caught his attention like a gem falling from heaven, catching the candle light, glistening. A jewel that would only begin to coat his sand-filled, empty mouth with sweetness...

Fight the thirst. Fight it. Think about Rhea. Think about escaping.

No use. No use at all.

_So thirsty._

Drip. Drip.

He heard no one come down into his cell until he saw the glow of red eyes in the darkness and watching him as he bowed his head and let his hair hide the shame and the redness of hunger possessing his ice blue eyes like spilled blood on a painting of a cold winter sky. No, hot, pulsing need was making him deranged and that was the last thing he wanted anyone to see now.

"Go away."

But the watcher seemed to relax, make itself even more a part of the grizzly scene. And now with eyes watching, the dripping of blood seemed that much louder. His skin froze and burned in cycles. Each drip made him think he could feel the heat of it as it passed, a few inches in front of him. Could feel the soft heat rake his skin like warm, rough fingertips. He quivered as though with a wretched, soul-sapping fever. And hunger rose in heavy, drowsy waves. His tongue worked at the back of his teeth, feeling along the length of each canine, touching the tips. He pierced just the tip of his tongue and almost moaned when the full flavor of it made skin searing hot with bloodlust.

And then the shame of it made him spit at once. His blood mixed with saliva made an ugly pattern on the floor, illuminated by the candle. His sadistic watcher chuckled and walked away as if he had seen all he wanted for the evening.

-----

An hour after the human victim had died the following day (or was it really several days later), they replaced it with another one. This time the person hung just out of reach if only D would lean forward as far as the chains would allow - and even that would cause the nails in his arms to stretch and tear the open wounds they had originally caused. The woman whimpered around the gag, which also served to pull back her short cropped blonde hair from her throat, which had the single phrase, 'Drink' carved into the first two layers of her skin. From between her white, bruised thighs a stream of blood fell. She was closer to the floor, and her neck bled from the cuts. Dressed in a skimpy pale shirt that barely covered her lower region, it was this new girl that made him hate vampires even more.

He looked at her when he woke from an uneasy sleep. The heavy day outside still made him more inclined to rest during the day. And when night fell, it was this new present that made him wish he could force himself to sleep during the night as well. But the girl was wide awake and watching him, fully aware from the queasiness in her belly that he too was like her horrible captors.

Without trying to breathe through his nose, he asked her her name. She shook her head slowly and quivered, her hands bound behind her back, her feet barely touching the floor. She swung from the chain that held her fast to the ceiling, tied so she was swinging upright. She could not hope to move the gag to answer.

He bit back his thirst again and said, "Can you... lean closer? I will get it out."

Instead, her eyes went wide and she screamed, struggling enough so that she was swinging at random.

D gritted his teeth and hissed in exasperation. "Please... trust me. I'll... I'll help you get out of here, but.. you must stay calm..."

She was already panicked. But quickly exhausted, she hung limply again, tears dripping down her skeletal face. And another person in the room slid into view, the candle light burning illuminating the horrible, twisted figure of the warden. His lips were thin and cracked and he wore a coat made of layers and layers of dead skins, animal, human, monster. It stank horribly and his hair hung in draggled dreadlocks. His forked tongue poked out from between his jagged, sharp teeth while he raised a long, bladed whip to the female chained before D.

"Don't you like your daddy's present? You didn't eat your din-din before either. You ungrateful - little - bastard!"

The whip whistled. Each word underscored with a terrified, painfilled shriek and a brilliant spray of red. It spattered D's face. And the scent consumed every breath he took, whether he inhaled with his mouth or not. He writhed, the chains rattling and the blood spilling down his arms from his shackles. The whip did not cease after the warden had spoken. Each blow fell on her back, until it shredded the thin cotton shirt to pieces and it fell to the floor, turning a ruddy brown when it soaked up the blood beneath her. The smell of hot living flesh and blood and wet cotton soaking in it made his head spin. She was screaming and the bodily jerks she made to avoid each blow swung her even closer.

The warden finally ceased as the woman's cries became even softer, weaker. She even ceased to struggle. Her eyes fixed on D but did not see him all that much. The creature that ruled Dracula's dark dungeons grabbed her and gently pushed her forward, within fangs reach of the dhampir... quivering with anger... and then thirst.

"End her suffering, dhampir. Be one of us. His lordship would gladly recieve you into his arms again if you would but drink a drop, lad."

The woman whimpered once, weakly, feeling D's eyes on her. Her pathetic state turned his hunger into a bitter resolve. They knew if he would not do it for thirst, he might do it to end suffering. To put a period on a long sentence of agony for another being. Something he could not hope for himself.

He held very still and said nothing at all, not even indicated he saw her either. The man glowered before he let her hang once again, her back riddled with open, gushing wounds, ribs gleaming white.

"Watch her die slowly then. When you are ready to be merciful, give her the honor of doing it slowly." The warden's parting words lingered as long as the cold in his bones. The same unending chill that would not end until he drank the sweet river of eternal life being wasted on the floor from the wounds in her body. The warden's dark sneer filled D's darkness with hatred... and vanished just as quickly, leaving only the imprint burning on his retinas. His eyes closed and he tried to think - then tried not to at all - and block the smell of blood from permeating his every thought. The need for it rendered him into a stupid monster unless he fought it.

The question of how long his will could endure could not be addressed. He was afraid to think of it. If he did, then it would be over all too soon.

-----

D woke in a feverish heat. He was alone again. He had to reassure himself that the floor beneath him was not a cold, stony wall, his fingertips exploring the old wood and finally clenching into fists. The memory of thirst had awakened the reality that he was suffering from it himself. He sat up carefully, as if too much movement would make him even more a victim to the bloodthirst. His tongue felt the points of his teeth for any changes but so far it was only a dull ache in his gums, not the lengthening of his canines.

Mouka was standing in the doorway, watching him, with the bird of prey gently nestled inside his hood, staring from around his head. Mouka's expression could only be described as a mixture of fascination, guilt, and awe. "Are you okay? You kept shaking..."

"Don't wake me if you see that again."

"I-I'm s-sorry." He looked down and backed away, lifting a piece of cold turkey he'd caught in a trap earlier that day. The hawk snatched it up quickly. The scent of animal meat and even worse, blood, wafted only a little. D closed his lips tightly and nodded toward the windows. The sun was falling again. Miranda would be awakening from her daysleep soon - and with it, the danger of her own fledgling thirst. If he did not find anything for her to feed on, she would begin to show signs of predation on Mouka. Mouka, though he could command fire at his fingertips, was still human and in danger of being her next victim. D had to let off the story for now - and finish remembering what he came to recall.

He had remembered something important. Something that might help her deal with her thirst - although he would not know for certain if the same practices he used on himself would work for a vampire - whose very existence was bent on the draining of human blood. And he had fast run out of blood pills to replace the real kind of nourishment true Nobility needed.

He loved her so deeply, that in his blood it hurt in a familiar-yet-not ache that he had turned off for decades. He didn't want to do to her what he had done to so many countless others, their bodies writhing in pain, agony and sometimes even relief as they reentered the cycle of death and rebirth. D's blue eyes shifted ever so slightly to Mouka and his bird of prey. "I remember the rest of the story now. Do you want to listen while I prepare Miranda's meal?"

"You bet!" Mouka smiled and called some flames to his fingers to keep them warm, using a small match. It kept his hands from freezing. He used the flames to set alight the logs in the fireplace. The few sparks flew up and caught on the logs and Mouka whispered to make them get hotter, burn brighter.

"Beautiful..." D heard Mouka say once, then he sat back, brought the blankets up around him and smiled, handing D the kettle of water and a cup, for D's blood pills. "Here you go."

Thanklessly, D mixed his final pill into the water he poured from the kettle with his finger. After it turned red, he delicately sucked the blood from his finger and left it to warm itself by the fire.

"Now... for the story to continue, you have to understand... what kind of monster my father really is."

"I know."

"No, you don't." D's eyes took on a very quick flash of red, still rolling the coppery flavor in his mouth, spoiled a little by the chilled temperature. "No, you don't. Not in the least."


	17. Heartache

Author's Notes: I've gotten a bit lost in my writing. So if anything seems 'wrong' or confusing, I know. I haven't had the time to fix it. I've gotten a new kind of job taking care of kids and laundry and stuff for some folks. I got kicked out of my house. It's not my fault. Between work and other people, writing... seems far away. But it's something I know is going to be there in the back of my mind. I hope this satisfies you guys! I'm so sorry... I could write a book about what's been going on in my life right now. But I'm a stronger person for it, and hey, I got my own life experiences as material if I wanted. Much love. PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS, DO NOT JUST FAVORITE. It means the world to me to get feedback!!

**A Dhampir Story  
Chapter XVII**

The night cloaked the room in a deeper stillness. The castle was surrounded on all sides by all manner of defensive mechanisms. The monster in the sand, the desert itself being cold and hot by turns, and the forest beyond that filled with the lord's wolves which feasted on the flesh of anything. Their eyes flled the darkness with a terrible ferocity, their fangs smothered in red foam, sometimes stained pink with the blood of unfortunate travelers who wander too close.

The stars swirled above but nothing illuminated the dark. D was alone, still chained to his bloodthirst, and suffering alone. No one visited to torment him. His dreams were filled with pale white throats, rivulets of blood, and the twisting, writhing pain in his belly. This was the bloodthirst unlike anything he had ever known before. He may have lost count of how long he had been captured, but his symbiot was impatiently waiting with smug attitude.

"You know, it was bad luck hookin' up with you," a voice muttered from somewhere above his head. "You might be the worst goddamned host I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. Are you thirsty? Are you in pain? Well, try to think of a way to get around it so you can get me the hell outta here!"

The dhampir said nothing in response. Who could say if he even heard what was being said?

"You plum forgot about me, didn't you? If I hadn't been so damned eager to get out of that box, we could've made a _plan_--"

The door swung open and closed again, interrupting the Symbiot in its ranting. The tall, cloaked figure before him did not reek of decay. It smelled instead of night-blooming jasmine and wind. The aura emanating from the individual was unmistakably Noble in nature. When the figure spoke, it was with the voice of Ramus.

"We used to do this to our enemies," Ramus said thoughtfully. "We would put them in cells and let them starve forever, until we remembered to let them out. And they slaughtered everything they saw, just to fill the need that had gone unattended for so many centuries."

Again, if D was listening, he gave no utterance to indicate he had.

Ramus glared at the wall above D's head, as if trying to focus an argument into one place. He stood tall and proud, his pouting lips hardened into a straight line seeming to be made of the very stone of this room. "Deron, why don't you just give Father what he wants?"

D looked up and a chilling voice asked, "What he wants?" It was like rustling of leaves, the moaning of wind. "I have nothing to give him... but my contempt... for casting me out... and--" Apparently the pain was too great and killed off any more words before they could be unleashed.

"Look at you! Any dhampir would have been dead by now. That proves you are definitely of Dracula's bloodline! But just because of what happened to that cow that gave birth to you doesn't mean he shouldn't treat you like his son. Give him a second chance. A respectable Noble would take his very generous offer."

D shrank back into himself. Not visibly. Just enough to where the Noble standing before him would be forced to wonder if he had lost consciousness. "I don't want to see you like this, brother."

"What... will you do about it?"

Taken somewhat aback, he smiled thinly and spoke in a reedy yet melodical. "I have no screaming babe to offer. Only my power, which does not even raise father's 'noble' brow in approval any more."

The energy between them grew, and the air hummed with it. It was choking and anyone standing in the immediate area would feel the hair on their arms raise and their bodies become suddenly struck with the shakes. The dhampir's eyes were made of pure ice, gazing intently through the soft locks that usually framed his effeminate, gorgeous face. He looked now like a caged, beautiful animal. His gorge rised, bloodthirst tormenting him the moment relief had been promised. D needed no such explaining by what he meant. When Ramus lifted his hand to move the edge of his collar from the long, pale neck beneath, the moment intensified. The urge grew.

"Why?" His voice rasped, his fangs prominent and the world spinning, spinning, and his vision rimmed with red. The scent of anyone's blood was enough to arouse a Noble's interest. But the most tempting of all was the blood of humans. Not surprising that even the scent of supernatural blood had the young man's heart racing. Hunger was an instinct. Nothing could be denied for now. Clenching his hands tightly, they shook and the noisy chains gave away his trepidation.

"Take my power to the Sacred Ancestor we call Father," Ramus whispered as he reached for the other pale figure. He closed his arm around his waist and pulled him from the wall, bringing the suffering creature quivering there to his body. "I can't bear existing. I'm not what he desires in a family and I suppose you could say I never was. He is striving for something he lost long ago and I don't have the heart to tear him limb from limb for betraying my trust and my love as a son. He won't even look at me any more. I should hate you. But for some reason, I cannot. Aren't we the same, Deron?" His words trailed away. The dhampir's head had laid on his shoulder. His arms pulled behind him. When his lips touched the Noble's throat, every inch of his skin quickened, his pulse raced painfully, and a rapture like being in an ocean of welcoming hands. Ramus trembled as he reached for the chains, unhooking them with a flick of a single nail that seemed sharper than the substance the chains were made of. D fell, of course. He had not counted on being released. His body found itself pressed tightly to the other's. Blood seemed to fill his vision, a strange glow illuminating all of Ramus's veins and arteries. The musky scent of power strengthened as his mouth smothered the throat before him, pale, strong, long and beautiful.

"Drink, brother."

A distant voice in D's mind cried out in protest. It went ignored as his fangs moved a centimeter more and pressed into the hard, immortal flesh. Something popped like a sweet forbidden fruit; he felt Ramus stiffen, heard his soft exhale, felt his hands close around his body near the middle of his back. Wetness spread across his tongue and threatened to choke him. He swallowed.

And swallowed again. By the third swallow he couldn't let go. He pressed his mouth hard over the open twin wounds, feeling the thirst abate and rise again in turns. Distantly, as if from another room, Ramus was moaning as if in a seductive swoon. The darkness thickened and grew warm with an unnerving aura. However, it didn't last long. In a matter of an eyeblink, Deron was at one moment locked against the Noble's body in a vampiric kiss before he was standing at the doorway, his back facing the prone figure of Ramus, which shook with either laughter or sobs.

"You won't kill me?"

"Out of pity? No." D's lips were stained with blood. He spoke in a stronger voice now. Cold as ice, more than merely dagger-sharp. He had finished now. His eyes were not red but black with hate. "Tell me where my sword is."

------

The castle was bustling with activity for once. As Dracula oversaw preparations for the new child's room and directing guests of which there were only a few, he was aware of a group of people outside at his castle doorsteps. His security systems pulled up the camera feed from outside the castle, from several microscopic "eyes" implanted in the walls, completing a full array of who stood outside. It was a motley crew of creatures, halfbreeds, wearing a colorful assortment of clothing. When he saw that a majority of them had nothing he would consider a weapon, he was still distrustful until he remembered that entertainment had not yet arrived.

He activated the voice recognition system and spoke from within his coffin, viewing the strangers through the holographic screen. Such technology was not unheard of. One might even say his coffin was 'lowtech', all things considered. But in this case, he preferred not to clutter his coffin with unnecessary things. It was where he slept. Not too far away, he could hear Rhea singing softly to their child.

Their child. His eyes unfocused for an instant, his vision clouded with emotion so unfamiliar, before he remembered he had more expected guests. Such disappointment had made him jaded. He was almost reluctant to admit he was afraid to enjoy the celebration himself. Centuries had come and gone, filling him with decades of fury that lead him to destroy anything happier than he was. He reaped misery across the land. He destroyed countless lives, scorning anyone without the courage to even fight back.

"You had all better have an invitation."

"We're minstrels," a halfbreed offered after awhile, deciding that he could hear them. "W-We are renowned across the Frontier for our talents and we recieved an invitation a few days ago and hurried here as fast as we could."

The bunch had gathered together, looking around for where they hoped was the 'eyes' of their black-hearted host. The eternal night made the torches cast an eerie, lonely light on the figures, with whom Dracula wanted absolutely nothing. However, he felt particularly benevolent tonight. It was a special occasion. They would enter - their weapons taken care of, of course. No one could make it through his forest and his land without self-defense.

"Do you know who and what I am?"

"Yes, you are the V-Vampire King, my lord. You could kill us all on a whim."

"You will be greeted inside. Enter. And don't be afraid yet. There is naught you could do that would cause me to worry. If you try to assualt anyone within, no matter who began the fight, you will all be destroyed in some entertaining way on the spot as punishment."

The motley bunch quivered at his words, but all together, they entered through the enormous doors. The remains of his guardian dogs had been cleared away days ago, the bodies of the mortals and the special room cleaned for his bride and newborn child. He knew they did not need to see any of that to understand his power. The name of Dracula had been forgotten over time, replaced by only the deepest ingrained instinct of fear in most anything that had an ounce of humanity in their genes. This fear kept everything at bay. Humans, monsters, demons - it made no difference. He had fathered them al in every conceivable possible way. He could unmake them easily. There was no contending this irrevocable truth.

Which reminded him of his other misbegotten child. He had left him in the dungeon, instead of annihilating him. Perhaps having a new child made him soft, some would say of Dracula's sudden burst of mercy. But they thought such without knowing full well he could no more destroy him than a simple ant could.

Every time he saw that dhampir's face, he could see only hers - and his rage subsided only into a bitter hollow shame. He had no idea that his only firstborn son would destroy everything he had ever cherished. The only person in the world who could unravel him, undo him. Fascinate him to the point of obsession. His birth had marked her end. And since, he had not been able to sire another. Not that he wanted to. It was over with her.

He roused himself from his coffin and dressed for the ceremony. He gazed into the mirror set upon the wall, but of course he could not see himself. He activated a holographic projector instead. The same pale-faced madman stared back at him, his red eyes now two glowing orbs stuck into the hollowed-out sockets in his skull. His black hair was an untamable mass, but with some effort he trained it back into a pony tail, his lips curving downward into a scowl.

Another stab at an existence not meant for him.

That never was.

Until now.

Within the far reaches of his empty shell, a thousand souls - none of them his own - screamed and howled, trapped in the black vortex that alchemy had created within him. He looked at the backs of his hands. The burned symbols were still there and glowed even now through his powder white gloves. He let his sleeves cover them, and turned to leave his chambers with only a dark, unsavory smile on his lips. It was time to greet all of his guests now. He would not think of his son, the only vestige of heartbreak. He would not think of his suffering, even though he felt it - a far away, dull throbbing in his gut where hunger seemed a ghost. He drank for the pleasure, not for the hunger anymore. That's how he knew his son was suffering.

Perhaps it was best to avert his thoughts from that. Maybe the thirst would eventually destroy him from within...

He entered the hall, traversing the highway of shadows he had come to rely upon. He was pleased that everyone stopped whatever it was they were doing and turned at once to look at him, frozen like so many deer in the hallway. A sumptuous meal was laid out on a long table. The lights flickered in a realistic manner like torches along the walls. The Nobility were all right to show him proper respect. And he had only invited true monsters to his dinner, and what some may call 'old friends'. He recognized none of them, ironically. Decades and centuries had faded his memory of most of them. He could tell a few were hoping to gain his recognition.

All would be disappointed. He had eyes only for his family. They were waiting for him to get them from their safe room, locked away from prying eyes until he was certain of their safety. A few eyes on him relaxed, and others - a small handful - burned with jealousy. If he could, he would share his miracle with his children. But not until he was sure that the pair could survive.

And they would, damn it. They had to.

-----

Sounds of revelry were echoing throughout the long, winding corridors. Ramus guided the dhampir through them excellently. Though they moved without a sound, they moved at such a great speed that D hardly had time to glance at the dusty paintings and architexture of the castle that seemed remotely ancient. Ramus was not weakened in the least by Deron's feeding. The power that throbbed in their veins was the frozen gift Dracula had given to Ramus, and now it was D's too. Rising through a circular stairway leading heavenward, the pair flew like a pair of black vultures toward the top.

The attic was not in the least bit as dusty as one would think. Ramus alighted near an unlit lantern by a door that was quite visible in the darkness to both vampiric eyes. The lantern remained unlit, and the door appeared as if it were made of wood. Simply made with dusty wood panels. However, it was not in the least bit made of wood but of a strong, supernatural metal. It was still unlocked nonetheless.

Deron looked at Ramus, his eyes unreadable, as if waiting for him to go first. However, Ramus wrinkled his brow and shook his head in apology. "I'm not permitted beyond here. Father has it locked against anyone whose DNA does not match his own. You, however, may gain entry since you share his blood."

The doorknob felt unfamiliar under his left hand. At a whispered word from the parasite, it was deemed that there was a nuclear bomb attached to the door with a two-warning system. At the first warning, an unwanted visitor would get a nasty shock that may or may not kill him or her. The second unleashed a small nuclear explosion that would annihilate the entire tower and leave the rest of the castle, shielded against radiation, unharmed.

D turned the doorknob and walked inside the darkened room. At his presence, a series of lights shuddered into brightness. His eyes adjusted and he wandered through the long, low-roofed room, piled with - of all things - cardboard boxes and plastic buckets filled with various artifacts from a time long before. He likened the room to stepping into someone's time capsule. Unfamiliar smells of things growing old filled his nostrils. He found the only thing that looked as if it didn't fit. The box was made of metal and half-opened where the hilt of his sword stuck out.

He dressed in the strange timeless quiet, eyes casting about quickly once in awhile for some surprise attack. But nothing lived in here but memories.

"D?" His symbiot spoke after he had fastened his belt around his slender waist. "I'm getting a low energy signal from somewhere in here. Considering the other crap that's in here, I think it's worth looking at."

"I must kill my father."

"I know, but he's throwing a party and he still thinks you're in the dungeon. You can afford to spare a minute or two."

D walked around a pile of boxes that was nearly to the ceiling. He could have crawled in between the space between the ceiling and the boxes. But instead, he simply moved a few boxes and climbed over the top of them, his boots leaving not an imprint on the dust. He stood in the dim space where the light struggled through the boxes.

"This is it," the Symbiot uttered. "This isn't something you just stuff in the attic with the antiques. Energy waves like this only come off of low maintenance machines, like refridgerators or heating units or things that preserve delicate stuff."

The object in reference was a large rectangular object laying upright against the wall. It was swathed in a dusty, drab blanket, moth eaten by time. A similar object was empty beside it, but it was open and empty and decidedly smaller. D examined the smaller object at a glance. It was a coffin similar to those of the Nobility. It lacked the luster and beauty of other coffins, making it stand out from the coffin that may have belonged to a Noble. It was also child-sized. It was a plain metal box with an electronic panel fixed to the side with a series of numbers and a display that was devoid of any light indicating that it was active.

He turned toward the coffin standing upright, swaddled in blankets. If a Noble was asleep here, whiling away the centuries, D had to investigate. Nobles could store centuries of blood in these coffins in hyperdimensions so they would never go without.

"Is there anything else you can detect?" D pressed his hand to the hilt of his sword, the left reaching for the blanket to pull it from the coffin.

"Nope."

With a swift jerk, the blanket tore into pieces and fell in a collected heap of rags at the coffin's base. He looked at it. The panel was glowing feebly in the dim light. He pulled another piece of cloth from the top and stepped back, visibly rigid in stance. Nothing he saw had caused him to draw his sword, however. There was a window display of the person within; it was a human woman, judging from the unhealthy gleam of her face. But the proud nose, the long blonde hair, the firm mouth indicated a woman who had lived strong-willed and cold as stone. Her form was sinuous and muscular; he could detect nothing supernatural at all except the state of suspended animation. Judging from the weak signal, she was not suspended in life - but in death.

She looked like a portrait of beauty, fondly kept safely out of sight.

D pressed his lips shut tight, though nothing could stop the quiver of his jaw. His teeth ground together, though his tongue and lips mouthed the word that described the woman in the coffin. His heart was pounding ever louder in his ears, full of his father's blood now.

"She kinda looks familiar, don't you think?" the Symbiot said aloud haughtily. "I'd say she has your eyes... but that's hard to say."

"D?" Ramus called from outside the room. D's ears heard him not at all. He pressed his forehead to the coffin's glass display, gazing intently at the creature that had once lived. His father had cared about this woman. He might have even loved her... but no man who loved anyone would put her in a coffin like this and lock her away in an attic. She deserved more respect than that. D's anger flickered and focused into a tight, white hot flame in his breast.

"I'll kill him for you, Mother. For making you suffer. For making this entire world suffer with you."

He wanted to stay longer, to do more for her, but all he could manage was to unpack another blanket and drape it across the coffin. He wondered if this entire attic was filled with their things. No, of course none of this belonged to his father. He had no belongings when he was still a youngish Noble. He owned nothing, wanted nothing. Except her. And as soon as his affection touched her, she was destroyed.

He renounced his love for his father once more, promising to kill every last one of the Nobility. There was all there was to it. When he exited the attic, Ramus looked at him mournfully before, quite suddenly, he sank to the floor with D's blade thrust through his heart.

Blood spurted from the wound. He closed his eyes and looked proudly at D, making no movement to halt his execution. D severed his neck. The other's head rolled to the floor, the body sliding to its side along the wall, softening into nothing but ash. By that point, though, the young man dressed in black was flying down the stairway, his heart twisted with cold black murdurous intent.

-------

Downstairs, the revelry had just begun. The entertainers from outside cavorted in the open air, seemingly bounding on invisible threads - which very well may have been the case. The players danced, their bodies glistening with an unnatural oil that kept their blood from being too much of a temptation for the Nobility and yet made their bodies all the more delicious to look upon. In the darkness, the eyes glowed with the blood of their supernatural parent. Each of them boasted of a different talent. Some sang so beautifully it forced others to kill themselves, but on the Nobility this had no effect. Others danced, others threw knives - but in no way were any of these skills ordinary to the human world. There was something about them that made them stand out from mortal achievement. It was the ingenuity of the Nobility that allowed such things.

In the heart of it all, the trio sat smiling. Or, at least one was smiling. The Sacred Ancestor sat quietly without movement, his arm protectively wrapped around Rhea's shoulders. She looked exquisite in a soft peach dress, her straightened hair bound up in an elegant twist. Their child was safe in her arms, each hand gently supporting the babe's body. The child's eyes looked uninterestedly at the world surrounding him. The sudden dark shock of black hair signified its parenthood, the unnatural pallor to its skin denoting some kind of innate illness. But all knew that it was a dhampir child.

In the center of the hall, one of the players went hush as they made way for another entertainer. The dimunitive form of a girl barely breaching adolescence stepped forward, her soft lavender perfume spreading throughout the banquet itself. The Nobility smirked, all their glittering eyes swerving to pay her some mind. All others before her had been nothing but background noise. However, this girl commanded everyone's eyes on her. Her hair was cropped short from her strange brow, which sported short, small pointed horns as small as a yearling deer's. She wore a simple attire of loose-fitting trousers that hung from her boyish hips and her stick-thin frame. But she stood proudly with her chin stuck firmly into the air, eyes the color of freshcut grass in the morning sun beaming from her round, impish face that was just curving into a woman's.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she began loudly, a silver bell ringing in the sudden quiet. "there are few things as wonderful in this world as the birth of a newborn. But have you heard of the tale of the one boy who had come from afar to slay the traitor king of his homeland after being banished for so many years?"

"I don't like this story," Dracula said simply, gazing down the long table toward the small horned figure. "Begin another."

"But this story doesn't end the way you think," she added gently, before beginning her concise little tale once more. "Listen and you'll understand." Her voice was mesmerizing. Each syllable fell upon the elfin ears of the Nobility lightly, just soft enough for them to crane their heads to listen. Anyone with less hearing would not understand a word, but each Noble was listening very closely.

Beside him, Dracula's Rhea looked perplexed, her lips forming into a small frown. _My, she does seem familiar. _But her thoughts were yanked away by the discontent gurgling of her child. No further attention was paid to the soft-spoken storyteller.

Somewhere, a door opened. Most of the other motley players had vanished from sight. Indeed, most of them had gone unnoticed from sight and now lurked in the shadows. And still the youthful girl's words penetrated the darkness, threading through the Nobles' ears and leading their attention toward her. The scent that came from her skin lulled each and every one of them into a kind of stupor, and her words secured the hold she had on them. How did such a child gain such a siren voice? And how on earth did it force every Noble in the room to succumb to its power?

From the shadows, the scent of candles filled the air but it did not quite penetrate the aroma offered by the girlchild.

Suddenly, a sliver of wood slammed into the chest of the foremost Noble sitting near the opposite end of Dracula. Then another sliver came from the shadows. And suddenly a shower of wooden stakes fell from the shadows above. Dracula shook off the influence first, finding no fault in the story as it was in fact quite interesting - however, he could not recall a single detail. He swung his arm around the woman and his child, the stakes bouncing off harmlessly into the air as it transformed into a solid black steel wing.

As each Noble suffered a blow through the heart from a stake, a black, gorgeous figure flew from the ceiling that had been before blanketed in darkness, landing on the long banquet table among the untouched food. His cloak billowed like wings, and he flew again. Forward, toward Dracula.

The motley crew leapt on the Nobles, brandishing their own marketed talents as weapons now. Nobles fell to burning ashes all along the table, soundless tragic deaths as they found their end at the hands of their entertainers.

The horned girl ducked down, floral green eyes wide as she saw the black figure. Her hands clutched a thin sliver of a knife she had kept hidden in the folds of her loose-fitting shirt. A demonic scream rose from the opposite end of the table. It was coming from the woman, in fact - Rhea's eyes were huge as she saw Deron rushing them head-on, fear in every rigid expression on her face. Sheilded by Dracula's wings, she could still see through the veinous membrane made of hardest metal the familiar figure brandishing a blade.

"FOOL!" Dracula roared. Shadows with thousands of red, gleaming eyes full of fury leapt in unison. D's blade cut through them all - hot blood was howling through his veins, full of power, fueled again by renewed rage. Was it jealousy or a dutiful son's mercy that drove him to kill? Of course it may have been both, but at this point, if Dracula could tap into his son's mind, he would find it clouded with a maelstrom of emotions.

Dracula found himself forced to face the only child he had begotten besides the newborn. He backed away, kicking the chair away behind him into the darkness. All along the table, Nobles lay in ashes or were in their final terrible throes. Dracula envied all of them of their end. He could never die... but he looked right at D's face and thought he found some hope there. He smiled, and pushed Rhea behind him.

"Run, foolish woman," he whispered to her, eyes fixed on his foe. "Come at me now, Deron! So you've escaped at last. Who was it that helped you? Why don't you tell Daddy?!" His unsightly wings snapped open, welcoming D into the swarming, writhing, cavorting darkness that was armed with teeth, spears, swords, guns of a time not too far distant in the past; their forms were the wrecked remains of souls devoured by centuries of Dracula's unforgiving thirst. His scream sounded in the very depths of Hell - he was no more a Noble than a blade of grass, though he was so much more.

The beastly form collided with the beautiful figure in black. Blood and shadows flew upward in a glorious fountain of death. The battle continued in the indiscernable demonic mess; D's body was unstoppable now. Whenever Dracula found a stranglehold on him, he found himself stung again and again by the other's blade. He knew innately that something *else* was making his blade so unstoppable. The pair squared off in the hall, moving so fast suddenly that Rhea had to blink to realize they had moved somewhere else.

Then her eyes were drawn away, to her child. The babe was unusually still. She uttered a soft cry of alarm, before her voice rose again another scream.

Dracula threw himself from D's onslaught toward her again. "ENOUGH!" He fell back, and so did D, who was smothered in blood, the blade gleaming crimson. The Vampire King staggered away to Rhea.

"He's not breathing," Rhea cried. "He's not moving anymore!"

Dracula halted in midstep, frozen in midthought. His eyes wavered between madness and despair, a look of pure ungainly emotion flashing over his face so quickly no one could tell what exactly he felt. "No..." He walked toward her, tearing her to her feet and prying apart her hands to show that the babe's eyes gazed blankly at the face of its father. It no longer breathed nor moved, as if there was not a spark of life left to let it continue. Its body, Dracula noticed, was weak and frail. Its heart had failed completely.

D stood dispassionately by, watching with an unreadable expression. Blood dripped from the tip of the blade to the floor. It seemed to signal Dracula's conclusion.

He dropped the dead thing to the floor. Rhea screeched at him, her body curling into a ball, pain upon pain tormenting her mind. "No..no, no, no..."

"Are you happy now?" the Vampire King whispered softly.

D said nothing.

"Are you content knowing I am finally damned? Unable to achieve that which even the most inane bloodsucking bastard can?" He smiled ruefully. "Ironic. Even my seed is weakened by time!" He threw back his head and howled with laughter. It could have just as easily been mistaken by the screams of a madman - or the sobs of soul so broken it was painful to hear.

The thing that tortured him the most was the fact that he could never have a child again - and yet his son stood so near he could smell the blood in his veins. He looked behind him, black unsightly tears streaming down his wildly grinning (or grimacing) face.

"You'll never kill me," Dracula told D. "As much as you want to... as much as I would crave to feel the end, it will never be mine." He breathed in, eyes glassing over as he brushed his hand across his face, gaze directed sideways toward the group of halfblooded unwanted children gazing with feral eyes at. "All of you. Get out. Every single one of you. If you value whatever pathetic lives you claim."

The bunch skittered away, more like chastised children than premeditated murdurers. He gave them one lasting look before turning toward Rhea, whose mind was now broken, whose heart was unreachable. He reached for her, but she backed away like a beaten mongrel, holding the body of her only child, her last child. His eyes hardened and the last ounce of pity he had for her vanished in a heartbeat. The very sight of her disgusted him, broke him again.

"Don't." D stepped forward. "You've done enough to her."

"I only want to end the pain I am forced to endure for eternity. It's the least I can do." His hand raised, it formed a long, sharp blade, jagged but effective. One swift stroke and it would be over.

"Give her the choice," D said. "You may find it easier to live with if you did."

"If you want to continue," Dracula said, "run. I swear I will not follow you ever again. If I ever find myself near you, I'll make penance."

The woman looked at him tearfully, before she collected herself and ran, circuiting the table, the small bundle in her arms clutched to her breast. Dracula let her keep it; it was nothing to him now.

"Why do you hate me?" Dracula turned toward him.

"You killed my mother."

"She died giving birth to you!" Dracula hissed. "You destroyed her!" His eyes glittered with hatred. "I couldn't stand the sight of you, so I put you in the coffin beside her." He swept his arms out wide. "You haunted this place like the spirit of her ghost. Ramus hated me for it when I decided to lock you away. But he wouldn't understand. I suppose now he never will. He will never forgive me for casting him aside, everyone who could have mattered." His lips twisted into a sneer. "Everything around me that I touch crumbles into meaningless dust. And I have the curse that I can never do the same." He gathered himself, stepping toward D - who held his sword point toward the other's throat.

"I took you from the coffin years later and threw you out my doors. I wanted you to live. I wanted you to grow up hating me... because it was easier than bearing your love." He touched the blade and moved it toward his heart. "Stab as many times as you want. If it makes you feel better."

D pressed his blade against his breast. A rivulet of blood dripped to the floor. But Dracula seemed to enjoy the pain, for it smothered all else he felt. He closed his eyes, but when he opened them again, D was nowhere to be found. He was alone.


	18. Love

**A Dhampir Story  
Chapter XVIII**

* * *

The halfblood children were still outside, huddled, gathering their thoughts for their next plan of action. Suddenly the main doors burst open and a heartbreaking young man stepped out. He was smeared in blood, but he walked without halting toward the horses stabled in the courtyard. Before going downstairs to face Dracula, he had disengaged all the security systems. He was sure Rhea was long gone, fleeing through the forest rather than chance the fury of the desert of bones. They parted to watch him walk past, his unerring path directing him to the dark, hunkered building holding the guests' various modes of transportation. He unhitched a horse and put a saddle on it.

A voice thick with resignation said, "So you're just going to leave him?"

"He doesn't have the heart to leave this place. If he does, he'll go far away and disappear." His eyes flicked toward the small window offering a view of the castle. "If you prefer, you can offer me some of your power and I can chain him here with your magic."

"WHAT? You're asking my OPINION? And since when did you have any kinda knowledge of my powers?" The voice sounded smug. "Well, it'd be a neat little challenge. About time I got to stretch my, er, legs, so to speak." After instructing D on what he would need, the Symbiot prepared the spell. It took a day to prepare. The halfbloods waited for him mysteriously beyond the castle gates. When it was ready, D stood before the castle and raised his left hand. The world grew dark; shadows pulsed around the young man, then crept along the castle walls, faster still was the grey energy creeping through the cracks in the stones. The Symbiot's face was visible in his palm, its black pupilless eyes flashing with unheard of power. Waves and threads of energy exploded from D's vicinity, wrapping tightly around Dracula's castle. D fell to one knee, his left hand drooping back to his side.

"Should be all set." Even the Symbiot sounded exhausted. "I expect some serious compensation after this!"

He rode the horse he had borrowed through the opened gates, which slowly slammed shut as soon as they were able. His eyes were hidden in the thick shadow created by his hat in the sun. It was nearing sunset already. D's lips were carved into a straight, unbreakable line. The horse trotted past the group of halfbloods, who all seemed ready to leave as well.

A figure broke away from them, running, her horns glittering like tiny gems in the setting sun. "Oh! Deron! Wait!" Her hair flew. D stopped at once and turned to face her as she ran up to the side of the steed. Her eyes were wide, fearful but relieved. "Didn't you see me? Don't you remember?"

His eyes looked coldly down, examining the soft features, the prominent little horns. "How?" His lips barely formed the soft word. But the sound of his voice sent a chill down her back. It was as if something in that dining hall had died along with that baby, something had twisted in him so far it was bent but never broken. But it made him sound hollow. Like death itself.

"I left the orphanage after Rhea did. All the halfbloods who wanted to go came with me. Together, we studied entertainment and fighting techniques. We all trained together." With a wry grin she shrugged. "We looked after each other." She tucked a piece of hair behind her delicately pointed ear.

D started to ride again.

"H-Hey. Wait. Deron!"

"Don't call me that ever again." The voice had an edge even sharper than a knife. Eili froze as if cut, her eyes wounded more than anything. His presence was cold, his voice even icier. Nothing in him was warm. Not even when he looked at her was there an ounce of warmth. Then he said quietly over his shoulder, "Tell them to follow me if they want to get around the sands."

Silently the group traversed the desert. The beast that lived there did not rise. It slumbered peacefully, for the food it had devoured before made it lazy.

* * *

D cowered in the darkness. Something cold dripped down his cheek. His eyes flew open and when he woke, he remembered where he was. He was in the orphanage again. His stomach twisted painfully, a sickening unease growing. Eili slept nearby, her tiny body curled even smaller into a ball, gently breathing.

He looked away again. They had all looked for Rhea. She was holed up in the guardhouse, alone. Her crying was audible even here. He was clutching the sword's sheath, the hilt under his hand, ready. But there was nothing but the quiet breathing of those asleep around him and the quiet talk of the ones assigned to stand guard.

He heard a snatch of conversation:

"He's dangerous, isn't he? He's his only son, you know?"

"Eili says he's not, though. Remember when he was a kid? He was harmless."

"He's cold now. Really cold. You've felt it, right? You were right in front when he walked by..."

His blood sung softly in his veins, while his stomach yet rebelled against everything else. He rose without a sound and slipped through the doors leading outside. They barely noticed him, since he slept closest to the door, farthest away from them all but Eili. He walked along an old path barely discernable in the grass. The lake shone like a polished mirror in the night. He stooped toward the water. His stomach rebelled and he was quietly ill on the smoothed stones, the blood in his belly black in the moonlight. He was sick for minutes. He hated the taste it left in his mouth. He crept toward another part of the water and scooped water into his mouth over and over, but the taste would never leave his mouth. He shuddered, feeling as if he would break apart. Tears still dripped down his face when he rejected the water he tried to drink as well.

Then, after a moment of sitting still and merely breathing, he turned his head and coldly regarded the silhouette standing nearby.

"Help me." It was only Rhea, watching him. The clothes she wore were old and dirty; she had found them in the guardhouse to replace the wretched attire from the castle. Her eyes were bruised from crying. "I can't do it."

He stood up and stared at her, no sign of embarassment at all for showing his weakness. He wiped his mouth once. "What do you need?" His voice was quite soft and reassuring.

She couldn't speak. She just started walking in a direction. So he followed.

In the tiny graveyard, she had begun a shallow grave but exhaustion had forced her to quit. He took up the shovel and dug for her, his muscles quaking with a strange trepidation. He remembered in a distant, greyed out memory when someone had dug his own grave. He remembered Eili's soft innocent hands on his face, in his hair. His eyes closed and he backed away.

"It's finished."

She lowered the small bundle into the ground. He replaced the dirt into the grave as well. Her eyes were as bright as the moon as she sat down at last as if she had finished her last task, exhaustion claiming her last ounce of strength. She sat back against the grass, eyes sliding shut. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, hunger pains barely breaking through to her. She rolled her head to look at him, her lips quivering as she spoke.

"I-I'm sorry." Her hands clenched. "I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to hurt you... or any of them..." She wrenched her head from side to side. "Eili chased you when she finally got big enough to get away. She tried so hard to stop me."

"Why..." His voice fell away. "What happened?"

"I wanted my own family... I was so blind with... with everything that happened.... he promised me everything. He said he loved me." Her next breath shuddered. "God, I can't breathe..."

D said nothing. He knew if he offered any help to her, she would reject it. She wanted to suffer more for him, since he couldn't. Instead he turned away, toward the house. "You have other children. They still care about you. They'll probably forgive you if you stay and care for them."

"It's too late. They can look after themselves now at this point. I'm not needed anymore."

"Do what you like." D started back toward the house.

"No... Wait..." Rhea sat up, reaching toward him. Her voice was beseeching, heartbreaking. "Tell me... Do you forgive me?"

For a long time he did not speak a word. He had stopped and faced his back to her completely. "You did nothing wrong. You were just being--" He halted unusually before he continued, "--human."

The dhampir looked back at her, and saw she was bitterly smiling, eyes hard with determination. Perhaps she would decide to live awhile yet, deciding that there was a thing or two to finish before her last breath. Either way, it was out of his hands now.

The stables welcomed him with a familiar old warmth. The hay and horse smell was quite familiar. However, before he could mount, a pair of small hands seized him from behind and pulled him back. He turned around, and Eili's angry gaze stared up at him. He was still taller than she was.

"Trying to sneak away? And I still haven't talked to you properly." She placed her hands on her hips.

D looked fixedly over her head. Not looking at her seemed better than facing her displeasure. "So you heard me. I guess I wasn't as quiet as I thought."

"I wasn't sleeping." Her eyes took him in anyway. In the dark, it was plausible she could see him just as easily. But her displeased glare melted away into one of longing. She threw her arms around his slender waist, her face burying in his chest. His clothes no longer stank of blood, since he had disappeared to wash them all earlier before he had gone to sleep. No amount of soap would wash away the feeling of filth or how disgusting he still felt. She couldn't touch him any more in all that innocence. Yet he did not bring himself to push her away. Her familiar warmth lured him to relax, his own arms sliding around her in return, her shorter stature forcing him to take care of her small but powerful shoulders. Her body throbbed in time with each pump of heart powerful heart.

He thrust her back, panting.

"D..."

"Get away from me. Go back. I don't care."

"I'm sorry." She folded her hands, backing away, giving him space. His thirst had returned and he quietly beat himself up inside, hating and hating it. He stared at her helplessly across the distance.

"No. I am." His voice sounded raw. He hated that too. So he kept quiet. He tried speaking again when he could trust it. "Did you know I was there?"

"Yes." Eili's eyes lifted, fixing to his own. She wasn't afraid to hold his gaze. "Zhou came away from the castle and found us, already on our way. It was our plan to destroy the Vampire King too. We thought if we got rid of him once and for all, the orphanage could run again like it used to. There are always gonna be more kids like us, born and rejected by our parents. They all need a place to go."

"Fools." His eyes closed in painful speculation of the result. "You would have all died."

"I wanted to help you. Zhou said you were captured and possibly dead, too. But I couldn't believe that. I couldn't." Her eyes glittered with tears. "You were my best friend. I can't just leave my friends to die, do you understand?" She bowed her head, snuffling on her sleeve. She went on, "Whenever I heard about your exploits, I was happy for you. But at the same time, I was quite sad. I knew it wasn't something you were doing because you liked it, but you had to."

"I don't like seeing death."

"Then stop! Stay here with us! Please!" She jerked forward but he shook his head firmly, eyes locked on her form. She forged toward him anyway. She reached to remove his hat, her small chest pushed up against his. He felt her heart pound twice before she put his hat on the horse's saddlehorn. "You can stop now. They won't come here."

"They will come." Her warm hands touched his cool face, and he melted again while her small form fixed to his. She wasn't much older than he was at all. She was maybe thirteen or fourteen by now. He couldn't remember any more how old he was now. He knew that the small coffin in the attic beside his mother's had been his own until Dracula had dragged him out, trying to be the father his twisted soul craved to be. And it had to have been maybe decades, or centuries, before his father had let him out again. He was an ageless being now - he had tasted blood and now he would never age beyond this year. "They know it was me. Nobility will come from everywhere to destroy me. I have to go away from here."

Her body pressed nearer, fingers gently sliding through his silken hair. "I don't care." A faint blush spread over her cheeks, innocence incarnate; she knew she had loved him the moment she saw him. Even as a young thing, she knew she wanted to breathe her last breath with his name on her lips. It may have sounded extreme to her, but it made the most sense.

"So you want everyone here to die just so you could be with me?"

She trembled. "That's not fair! You can't say it like that. Nobody's going to die here. No one's going to bother them in this place with its reputation now."

"Stay here with them. Don't follow me anymore. You will surely die if you do." What remained unspoken was, You will not remain safe anywhere near me. Beating at his psychic barriers was the ever persistent thirst - it had been awoken... and now would forever torment him until his unnatural longevity came to its end.

Desperation colored the girl's eyes, while she stood back and observed the dark figure of a boy almost a man, his thin face lengthened by suffering but no less softened, his body blanketed in a shadow that was more than the way his traveling cloak devoured the light. Finally her small, pouting lips parted and she spoke softly, "You want to stay." She tried again, leaning forward ever so slightly. "I know you do. There's nowhere else you can go. The only place where anyone will accept you is here... with me. Each day will pass and even if you don't grow a day older, it won't matter because I'll love you more with every wrinkle I'll get, with every breath you take, every time you smile so rarely like you do. That thought comforts you more than leaving and being alone for as long as you're going to last."

The words wove in and out of the night, echoing in the small enclosed space, muffled by the animals resting inside against the cold. Wrapped in her words, the night-clad figure seemed to shrink back, then one long gloved hand reached out to seize the hat and put it on, then the saddle pommel with the slow artistry of a man stroking a paintbrush over canvas. Her skill was powerful, had been able to captivate pure Nobles - but not Dracula, too involved in the new life he had wrought, to understand what was happening to his fellow Nobility. Her voice's magic penetrated the silence, as well-honed and sharpened as any knife and as painless as a tranquilizer. However, the young dhampir gently guided the steed around her to the open night. She ran out after him, in shock that her gift had failed. In fact, she had no way to know just how the dhampir had even resisted. Her Voice worked on anything with enough sense to understand her speech. She could even use her Voice on most monsters and they would dance to her song.

He disregarded her talent completely as if it was a simple minstrel's trick.

"Deron!" She cried in forgetfulness. "D! Please!"

He mounted the cyborg horse, seizing the reins in a steady grasp. Stamping and snorting, the animal was impatient to go since it was already awake for the journey. He wanted to get away before the poor girl's heart could break any more. The very least he could hope for was that she would hate him, and maybe hate would fade sooner than her love. Before he could start off at a steady trot, the girl threw herself toward the saddle-bound figure. She landed firmly behind him. She tried to wrap her arms around him, but he grabbed her wrists and pulled her to sit in front of him. In such a compromising position, she was blushing, but he held her in a grip like cold iron shackles.

"Ow!" Her eyes watered, but she gazed at him firmly still. "I didn't jump up here to stop you anymore. I just... wanted this. That's all." She took a deep breath, blushing at her awkward and vulnerable position. She took his face gently between her very warm hands, brushing her lips against his for the first time. It set her entire body on fire, but she commanded herself not to wilt like some stupid school girl. She felt his unyielding mouth soften for approximately five wonderful seconds. He tasted silken and sweet almost, like honeysuckle. She listened to him make the softest of noises - pained, almost. She nearly wilted then. But ever so slowly he pulled away. This time she didn't fight it. She was still shaking from his influence, even noticing that he was trembling too. She had a suspicion it was not to keep himself from drinking her blood but from kissing her again.

"You'll never be a monster to me, D. Not ever." Eili brushed her hands over his face once before she gracefully shifted her weight off the saddle to put her two feet back on the ground. She seemed so resolute before that he stay, but she acknowledged some older part of herself that understood his need to be Away. To go as far as he could away from the place that brought him such pain - and such good memories. He would keep the picture perfect images intact as much as he could. He would not blacken their edges any further, or splatter them in more blood.

She steadied herself with a long breath, reconciling with the feelings she felt when she kissed him, and quickly pushed them aside. She was a child once more. She stood beside the steed and spoke in her calmest voice. "Zhou should be around. He has some things to tell you too before you go, if you'll hear them. He didn't tell me what, but he said to find him in the woods on your way out of the area."

"I understand." His voice sounded just as chill and velvetine as before. He gazed at her for a long time, really looked at her. To remember her, she hoped. Then with an infinitesimal sigh of parting, man and horse turned away and began on the longest journey ever. There were places in the Frontier D had never gone, places untouched by Vampire Hunters. It was the human dwellings D sought - where he could destroy the Nobility and make ends meet for longer journeys between the twilight hours of day and night, walking shadowed places she could never be. She would probably never see him again before her own life came to some end. The halfblooded girl sighed as she pressed her hand over her lips, as if to keep the tingling chill that came with his lips from getting away.

* * *

Mouka was enraptured, his eyes nearly filled with stars. Miranda was sitting by the fire, her unnaturally pale face veiled by her ink-black locks, a rapt ear paying every bit of attention although her body was statuesque in its stillness.

D had been quiet after a long time. He was thinking on his next words. Or so Mouka hoped. He was not done. Something about the way the words did not scream 'Okay, all done!' to him. He sat with his bird of prey warm between his hands, talons gently tangled in the falconer's glove he wore to protect his hands when she got fidgety. And she did get fidgety, especially around Miranda. The longer she spent there while D sorted out his memories and remained true to his convictions about the Nobility, the less time she spent drinking the blood of animals in the wilderness, the more she relied upon the blood pills.

"I don't think this is something we can continue for now." The hunter sat back with his back against the wall, in the darkness just out of the firelight's reach. He was watching Miranda. But the two gleaming eyes seemed riveted to her, as if he could look at nothing else.

Mouka knew he should know much better than to be comfortable around two Nobles. But he was tired and hungry now. His bird would have to wait before he could let her hunt. It was warming up a bit outside; small creatures were attempting to scratch up some nourishment through the snow. But the double-edged sword of warmer weather meant dangerous monsters approaching as well.

Miranda stirred suddenly. Mouka nearly jumped out of his skin; perhaps his inner thoughts were distracting enough to make him fall asleep. She abandoned the blanket and glided across the ground toward the door - it was growing daylight but as if on cue, D stood to follow her. The black figure followed the one cloaked in brown. They seemed to have some business outside. It did not feel right. Mouka became attuned to their presence, their slight supernatural nuances almost as if he had known them all his life. But he also felt like a little boy when he smelled a parental argument coming on between mom and dad. He shuffled to his feet. Before he came within ten steps of the door, a powerful and unnatural cold forced him back, as if he had touched a wall.

_Stay_, was the general feeling. No words. Just a firm command. Exclusion.

He wished he had supernatural hearing.

* * *

It was getting warmer. Sluggishly, Miranda ended up following D's effortless footsteps across the snowbound landscape. The only footprints visible in the snow were Mouka's and the small animals bounding across the white drifts of cold. When they reached the lake, Miranda noticed D had taken his sword along with him. The pommel was intimidating - like a horned demon, the handle was worn with much use and seemed to harbor some quiet but vengeful spirit. D turned to face her, the lake stretching out, reflecting starlight and moonlight like an icy mirror. She remembered the story of the giant seabeast, the one that nearly destroyed the orphanage. She heard things - whispers in the twilight, ageless and old. The vampiress did not doubt that D had found his tragic beginnings here.

She felt a distinct pain. It was thirst. She had been ignoring it well, but she could smell Mouka on her clothes just from simply sharing the same space as the human. She closed her eyes and tried to block it out, but the red haze was strong. She was a young Noble - when the spirit of a Noble had taken her, it changed her... and D loved her enough to let her live her new night existence.

The pair stared off at the lake for a long time, standing very close. D reached his hand forward to find her wrist. As she felt his fingers tighten, his scent washed over her and she nearly swooned. It had been a mistake... to let her exist. He knew it. She knew it too well. She closed her eyes and breathed out, to get the scent of him from her.

"D... Have you made any decision?"

"I have. You'll know."

"When?" She felt all the strength in her body wane as the daylight grew stronger just beyond the mountains. She leaned against his chest and pulled his cloak around her... warmth seemed to radiate from every inch of him. She buried her nose in his chest.

"When my tale is finished." He brushed his lips over her hair. She weakened, but that may have been the encroaching day. "I know it must be soon."

"Will you tell it during the day so that I can hear too?"

It was admittance - when night fell, she would be maddened with thirst. He never had to restrain her bodily from hurting Mouka before. She shivered in his arms, weeping silently, her fingers tightening on his sides to hold herself still. She was incapable. It was terrifying. She wanted to live, but not like this. Mouka was their friend, someone who had overlooked their nature to be their traveling companion and sometimes their day guardian. Friendship was all but forgotten when bloodlust overcame a Noble, no matter how old. Only the most truly experienced and willful people could put it off until they found a suitable candidate for filling the need for the blood.

"I will. I promise." His words coated her nerves, comforting her. He returned her to the house and let her rest against him until she was rendered immobile by the sun. He left the basement and found Mouka asleep by the embers, blanketed in the growing daylight. But D was not weary, so he barred the basement door and let the sunlight fill the room by removing all the torn, tattered sheets he could find from the windows to keep Miranda from the dark rooms above to feed on Mouka. He watched the human sleep for a long time, then turned from the orphanage dormitory and walked outside.

"You're a real piece of work. You either leave the women you love, or you end up killing the ones that love you. In this case, I'll go with the latter. I'll give you points for trying," the Symbiot commented dryly. "I know you tried hard, D. But you've got to stop this."

"I don't know where else to go." He never answered the jabs of his left hand so heartfully. His voice was so rarely broken as it was now. "I don't know what I'm going to do after I slay her. She knows her death is coming now. I wonder if she is afraid."

He stood at the dark hollow beside the little pond, having ducked beneath the trees again. Eili's voice rang in his ears here. He remembered the sunlight dancing through the clouds on the water. Fairies, he had whispered, filled with wonder.

He felt hollow. As if nothing would fill him with that same easy-going wonder.

"She isn't. She won't be. She'd rather it be done now, then later when she's got that kid's blood on her hands and in her mouth. Do you really want to see her commit that sin?"

"No." Vehemently, he shook his head. Then he grit his teeth and bared them, a mockery of the cool, chill exterior. "Killing her was the last thing I ever--" He turned suddenly; a black, blurred shape threw itself against him. His guard down for a rare instant, D flew backward for several feet, breaking branches and brambles as the two figures rolled through the brush. He turned his fall into a controlled tumble down a hill and sliding through a thin layer of snow toward the lake. He kicked the attacker free and sent it crashing away and drew the sword with the motion of rolling to his feet.

The figure was a wolf - but rather than standing on four legs, it rose on two and turned. Its face and muzzle was scarred and twisted. It rolled its lips back to bare canines, thick dark fur neatly covering its body. Beneath all that thick winter coat was rippling muscle. D's blade glistened with blood - he had cut the beast as it flew through the air.

"A true Werewolf. Don't see many of your kind here."

The Werewolf stood a full nine feet tall. Its hackles shook as it growled ever so softly. Then, it crouched on the snow in a submissive pose. The wolfish form seemed to shrink and lose much of its fur. Then a dark-skinned nude man replaced the beast in the snow. His scarred face and useless eye was almost unchanged but for a few new wrinkles and scars.

D's breath caught. But the blade remained unwavered. Who knew what else had changed this man from his past? The Easterner's dark skin was even darker from exposure to the elements. His graying hair was roughly bound with a leather cord and his muscles bunched and relaxed as he kept his balance.

"You've changed," said Zhou gruffly.

"You're not wearing any clothes." D's stance was statuesque, unrelenting. His sharp blue eyes narrowed - or so it seemed. He almost smiled.

"It's a nice day outside - for a Werewolf. You can put your sword down away. I will not attack you. I just thought I would surprise you."

"Why didn't you 'surprise' me earlier?" With the hiss of metal, the sword was replaced into its sheath. D still stood apart from Zhou, as if the man was from a completely different realm of existence.

Zhou stood, revealing a pack that was strapped to his back. He stepped into a pair of trousers he kept in it and shrugged the pack onto his bare shoulders once again.

"I've been listening to the story," Zhou said. "I'm a bit disappointed you didn't hear me approach in the snow while you were speaking. Or maybe you didn't care. Sometimes I wonder. It's been... a long time since you last visited."

"I thought you were dead. I even prayed for you at your room."

"I do not go back here. Restless spirits preside here. They do not want me, they need you." The massive shoulders drooped slowly. "I hear a woman's voice. She's a Noble."

"She'll die before nightfall."

"But you love her."

D's tension grew taut again. "I hate Nobles. I hate what they stand for. I hate... I hate what I am. I'm responsible for what happened to her. Therefore I've got to put an end to the Nobility. It will never end if I let her live. She'll find that blood is the only thing that will make her content. I'm also running out of time."

"You've got all day."

"Zhou... Don't interfere. I'll cut you down. You won't be the first Werewolf I've slain."

The Easterner's eyes looked hard for a moment, before his ancient face seemed to droop with sadness. He shook his head slowly and looked away from the beautiful hunter as if the sight hurt his eyes. "Is this what you've become? I thought I raised you better than this."

"It's not about how you raised me."

Zhou nodded again. Resigned, he stepped out of D's direct path if he intended to walk forward. The path would take him directly back toward the dormitory house. "Then by all means... kill the woman you love. But for the sake of the dead who reside here, do it somewhere else. Rhea's been through enough already. I've tried everything to make her spirit rest, but she refuses. She needs to do something before she continues on her spirit journey."

D looked as if he had been struck across the face. He looked down, for once not meeting the other's gaze. "You're a ghost, too."

"I did everything I could to rescue you from your father. I ran so hard, I thought I would perish before I reached you. By the time I arrived, from the opposite direction, you had already done something to that castle and I followed the wagon tracks back to the orphanage. I rested in the forest. The moon had been full and I did not want to make an accident of my arrival and get myself killed. The castle and its woods makes my blood stir. Others of my kind did not bother me, not perceiving me as a threat. I knew you weren't going to stay there to help Rhea with the children. You never met with me that night so I could talk to you, to convince you to stay as well."

"You stayed with her." It was a statement of truth and a bit of amazement. "You stayed and you loved her."

"She died quietly and happily at an old age. We kept busy so she rarely remembered what had happened." Zhou smiled as distant memories were recollected and looked upon fondly. "She never thought it odd that a wolf slept at her bedside some nights. She knew instinctively what I was and accepted my condition without question, as if I was just another half-breed child. She was grateful for my love and understanding. But never once did she forget about you. She lamented you almost every day."

D said nothing, but the words seemed to wash over him like a wave. He trembled visibly. It was not the cold. Zhou wanted to approach him, but the figure before him was not a boy anymore. He was not a man, either. He was a cold and silent sword, shaped like a man, with the heart that was bent but not quite broken. Comfort would not have been welcome.

"If you can't find a way around that woman being a Noble, then all you did was for nothing. You should throw down your sword and quit. Because if it's not for love and compassion that you work, then it's not work worth doing." Zhou's voice grew hard and jagged. It sawed over D's nerves. "I wanted more time to teach you about those things, D. But I thought that letting you go would let you figure those out on your own. Maybe you have, but you haven't learned to act on it."

"Love was what hurt Rhea."

"But she got on with her life! Look at me." Zhou pointed to his rugged facial disfigurements, and the unnatural way his remaining eye gleamed like a predator's, so brown it was almost red. "I am not the most attractive man, nor am I wholly a man at all. But she grew old with me at her side and never complained once. And the best part, I regret absolutely nothing. In fact, I would never have had the courage to be with her if it weren't for a young, hopeful dhampir child I met so long ago."

The dhampir stopped trembling. He took a few steady breaths. He looked back up at Zhou and truly saw him. He knew that Rhea would never have judged from appearances anyway, but it did help him understand Zhou more. He loved the man even more for doing what D never could. They were almost from the same cut of cloth, but from different corners of the sheet. Zhou stayed with Rhea, helped her overcome her tragic history and be the sort of companion that would respect her body, her heart, her mind.

"Thank you. And I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I'm sorry I've been yelling at you when you've got plans to make." A long moment passed while Zhou turned and gazed at the mountains around them. Somewhere, there was a castle in the distance, its ancient stones cracked and crumbling with time. "Do you remember the story about the dhampir woman and the wolf people?"

Wordlessly D nodded.

"It really is a true account." Zhou smiled suddenly. "I will find you again someday, D."

The werewolf gave D a long, final assessing look before he slipped back around him and into the snow-clad trees. The dhampir sighed and, alone, walked back toward the house in the daylight, a bone-deep aching making his walk stiff and less graceful than it normally was. Instead of a dancer gliding across the white landscape, he looked weary and reluctant.

Mouka was still resting, but woke immediately at D's very light touch. The human looked up, shocked for just a moment to find himself warmly in his blankets and meeting the gaze of the most beautiful man he had ever seen. D offered a smile that would have made angels weep.

"Pack your things." D stood up from kneeling and started to separate what belonged to the dormitory from what belonged to them. He even selected some blankets that seemed worth keeping for the road. After all, only one person needed to really stay warm. Mouka's power came from within, but it only lasted so long as he had the energy. Then he would get just as frozen as any average person.

"Where are we going?" Mouka finally asked. His falcon flew fast and far from him, hunting in the woods for a stray mouse scratching about for food. They were walking out to the stables, checking the horses. D started to prepare the horses for travel.

"You should go."

"Go? Go where?" Frantic now, Mouka stepped into the stable and gazed around him. It was much warmer today. The stable was warm also and smelled of the horses. He shivered in spite of himself.

"There's a town southeast of here, if you follow the road. We bypassed it before to save daytime. You should get there before nightfall if you leave now." D had prepared the horse in nearly record time. Startled from its rest, the horse's hooves stumbled a bit as he brought it forward and handed the reins to the fire dancer.

"Look at me."

Mouka stared at D. His heart skipped a beat as he took in the beautiful, angelic countenance in the full light of the sun. His eyes were an icy blue, his nose perfectly shaped, his lips feminine and a faint rouge darker than his skin.

The human male blushed in spite of himself. "I am, D. What's wrong?"

"I don't think you'll see us again. When Miranda wakes up tonight, the thirst will take her and I will have to focus all my attention on keeping her away from you. The farther away you are, the better it will be for you." D turned away finally. He gazed at the dormitory house, still bathed in crystalline sunlight. It was a rare, sunny day. Icicles were forming from the snow on the trees and along the eaves of the house.

"D?" Mouka felt magnetized toward him, wanting to reach for him, to comfort him. He looked away again quickly and patted the horse's velvet nose. He hated how even now, D could still make him bristle with shame and desire even though he was a man himself. He had no idea if D knew about his power over people.

"Go on. Don't worry about us anymore. What you've done for us... was more than enough."

With those soft-spoken words, Mouka felt the lightest of touches against the back of his neck. When he turned around, D was already vanished like a seductive phantom.

"I hate it when he does that," Mouka sighed, shaking off the spider web tingles of D's presence. Then he mounted the horse and began to head down the snowy-packed road.


	19. Dark Inheritance

**A Dhampir Story  
Chapter XIX**

* * *

Mouka was riding through the snowy afternoon for what felt like three hours own the road D had spoken of before he reached the town. It was a quiet little village, which sustained itself on the thousands of pounds of meat it procured from the reindeer herd. Rather than normal reindeer, these animals were genetically engineered to be larger than normal. They could sustain a small city for a decade; a single animal could feed a family for a month.

The fire dancer bundled himself a bit more, his frozen hands gripping the reins but he barely felt them. He hoped D was satisfied with how far away he was. A Noble could probably travel this distance in under an hour.

He had some money. He felt for a town like this, it would be enough to put him up for a few nights. He paid for a single night just to be safe at the small traveler's lodge and fell exhausted into the nearest bed. His falcon would be a free bird after tonight. He did not have the heart to hold onto her anymore and she had indicated through his rare gift of speaking to birds that she was feeling the pull of the wild. She hungered, she ached to feel warmer climes, and he knew he could understand the sentiment.

The bed felt amazing after staying up all night to listen to D's story and then sleeping on a hard, cold floor during the daylight hours. He relaxed his grip on the fire that burned inside of him and let it alone, quietly smoldering like a deep-seated ember next to his heart. He was warm, he was safe, for the most part... and even as he slept, he would be dreaming and worrying of his companions of the night.

How would D find a way to help Miranda not be a murdurous bloodthirsty killer and instead become a respectable night-dwelling traveler?

* * *

Miranda woke in the pitch-black, earthy basement slowly as the last fingers of sunlight lost their grip to twilight. She could see everything around her, even the tiniest details. She heard a fluttering rapidfire heart beating nearby - a mouse, scuttling back to its safe haven.

She untangled herself from the dirt piled around her and saw a figure that escaped her penetrating vampire vision. The shadow above her seemed to defy her superkeen senses. She saw nothing, just the shadow of a gorgeous young man. His gaze struck her as sad and determined at the same time.

She was so busy staring at him that she cursed herself as soon as she began to notice it - a sudden, creeping feeling of something was simply gone. Something was missing, and a part of her was irredeemably empty. That she still felt exhausted showed that she had gone too long without a real offering of living human blood. The power of starvation was plain. She would become utterly inert if it went on for too long.

His eyes did not waver. Coolly, the Hunter said, "Come to me."

Sluggishly she made her body move. Nights ago, her mechanical limbs had been rejected and real limbs, real life limbs, grew in their stead. Now she was whole, but the entire process had forced her to drink almost all the blood pills D had stockpiled in order for the transformation to take place. So as she forced her body to rise, she was not surprised that her reflexes were a little slow. She actually fell forward. She felt hard arms wrapping around her instantly, lifting her up.

"Is this normal?" she croaked helplessly, her fangs poking at her lips. She was so thirsty. She kept imagining soft, crystal brooks bubbling over stones. Something that would coat her tongue better. Milk. Her eyes closed and she moaned. This was no pain she had ever felt before. "D."

She felt his hands against her lower back, supporting her by leaning her against his body. In another time, she would have felt completely violated by such a thing, but his touch was more welcome than anything in the world at that point. The woman had been scorned for her body for so long. This stranger had saved her life. Now, with him at her side, she could live through anything. She was even prepared to die.

In fact, that was what she was prepared for when he took her into his arms for what seemed like one last heartbreaking time. Feminine lips parted to let out a soft sigh. Her dark hair fell across her closed eyes. She looked like a pure white doll, preserved for eternity.

They stood in the basement like that for a long time. He wore his traveling clothes but he did not appear in any great hurry to stop this moment to leave. Then, slowly, he bent his head down to her ear and kissed it. He kissed her temple, her cheek, eyelashes, and the very corner of her lips. Each press of his lips on her skin set her very being ablaze. She molded herself to him and lifted her eyes. She was still expecting her death tonight.

"You'll tell me when you'll... won't you?" Miranda hoped her voice hadn't the slightest indication of her trepidation.

With a very careful motion, D loosened the folds of his scarf and turned his head. The finely chiseled throat was pale and untouched. Her eyes widened considerably as she took a deep breath through her mouth. Pressure told her she could feel him holding her to him as soon as she tried to fall back. Her thirst and the terrible ache of emptiness inside of her screamed. Pinned to his body, the woman had no choice but to stare at his throat, his eyes calmly watching her through soft and luxurious lashes. His other arm moved to join the other around her waist.

Distant but steady was the rhythm of his heart.

Unthinking, she stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his pale, beautiful, cool skin. But she did not bite. Her hair fell across her back as he untied it from its loose ponytail, his opposite hand pressing against the back of her head gently to guide her to drink.

_For strength_, she told herself dizzily, but it was not for that reason at all. Hard, pointed canines thrust into his throat with more force than she intended. She felt him stiffen and hold her tighter; the woman fantasized that he was actually enjoying this, but she knew full well that he had strong negative feelings toward this kind of thing. But he did it because it was in his blood as well. Eyes squeezed shut, his pulse pounding beneath her tongue, blood gouting across her teeth, she felt all the more relieved when he held her close in spite of what she was.

He blames himself, she realized in a swirl of hazy impressions through his blood. She swooned and drank more, felt his body sway as he positioned himself against the wall and let her enjoy him. Her hands roamed his body, spanning the alarming firmness of his belly and chest as she fed. The blood was a kind of thread, linking the psyche to the body. Drinking his blood, she learned about the vaguest of things. She became painfully familiar with emotions she could not fathom, torn asunder by the tsunami of lifetimes he had lived. She shuddered against his body and lapped at his throat lavishly, savoring and fearing the strangeness that his blood gave her.

D. Deron. Whoever he was, he was not going to kill her tonight.

She looked up lazily, seeing his skin had paled a bit, but his lips were relaxed. Quickly leaning up to kiss them, she felt him brush his hands over her hips and lower back. Strangely giddy, she flirted the tip of her tongue against his lower lip. He tasted sweet and wonderful and... she realized he had cut his tongue. She was hungrily kissing him in earnest now.

Only Miranda would ever have what most would consider the unearthly blessing of hearing him laugh when she pulled her mouth away at once and glared at him.

She paused to listen for a long time. "I don't hear Mouka."

D's expression, if it had been jovial with that slightest of smiles before, sobered at once. He firmly guided her back two steps. The way he advanced silently and stoicly up the steps was nothing short of terrifying. His beauty was multiplied by his eerie silence.

Without a word, she followed him. The upstairs was utterly devoid of any light. In the most complete of darkness, she noticed that Mouka's belongings were missing. She felt her heart ache in an unfamiliar way and it was at that moment, seeing D silently waiting in the open large double doorway outside, that she could not be trusted with human life.

Her existence was at its most crucial point. Even with the power of D's blood - the blood the Great One flowing in her veins - she still needed that glorious red substance pumping through the young and old, lame or healthy, the blood of mortals. Their horses were waiting outside, hitched to the sign that had faded from centuries.

"He left before us. But we're not meeting up with him."

For the first time, Miranda's voice displayed a stutter of anxiety. She hesitated. "Where are we going?"

D mounted the cyborg horse without a word and simply waited for her to do the same. That he waited at all for anyone was a wonder in and of itself. She quickly followed suite and the pair set off along the road that had been hidden by snow. The shod hooves of Mouka's mount had given away his direction, but instead of following that, they reached the fork in the road. He made a sharp turn to the road bound toward the darker horizon. In the untouched verge of the forest, snow clutched at everything it touched. The trees acted as a muffler to every sound. Stamping and huffing, her horse hesitated before she could convince it to follow the dark silhouette of horse and rider ahead.

The fast and furious pace did not become hampered when the trees closed in. They rode the same straight path for what seemed like an eternity, but D confidently went ahead without a word. The snow was thinner on the ground here. A silence unlike anything before seemed to fall in between the trees, so thick it seemed to make the air even colder. Unbothered by it, D and Miranda forged through it.

Suddenly the trees turned and twisted; it was a dizzying maze of tall, snow-cloaked trees. Miranda was glad her horsemanship was up to speed to at least keep D in her sights, or she would have ended up turned around and lost.

The forest suddenly dropped away behind them. To Miranda, it felt as if someone had yanked the scenery away from a stage where she had stood, so suddenly, that it felt like she had fallen 'forward'. The landscape's change was somewhat disorienting. Suddenly she was flying at great speed across a barren white tundra, empty of all life. Not even a sparse bush. She thought back, realizing suddenly where they were.

She wanted to call out to D, but he seemed to have no problem continuing across the barren emptiness. Then finally her eyes caught the giant structure rising before them as they closed the distance. The stars glittered above it, a baleful moon cutting a swath out of the night sky in exchange for a scythe of a moon. The structure became even more clarified as a castle - or it once was. It had been broken down over time, in such a state of disrepair that she almost felt sorry for whoever was stuck living in there.

She also felt, even out here where there was no place to hide, that she and D were not traveling alone. She watched D riding and felt a sting of panic. What were they going to do here, of all unholy places?

They reached the massive walls surrounding the castle. Ironically, the castle itself was in more disrepair than the outer walls themselves. In some cruel twist of fate, the castle was as well protected from invasion now as it was in the nights of glory. As soon as she caught up with D, he had already dismounted and approached the wide gateway. At his presence, the mechanisms within it jumped to life and groaned. The doors swung open slowly. The blue gem swinging from D's throat gleamed with a strange glow.

"D?" Miranda called uncertainly. A certain fear crept over her. Yet was she still a new vampire, and this place was veritably drenched in a presence incalculably ancient. She hurried after him, guiding her horse along the surface of the ice.

The crumbling stable in the courtyard served as a temporary shelter for the mounts. Meanwhile, Miranda stuck close by to D. Death hung in the air... and a malevolence she could feel crushing her, from all around.

"D," she said again, firmly. "D, I don't want to be here. I'm afraid."

"Don't be," he said softly. "There's nothing you can fear here."

From the vicinity of his left hand, a hoarse voice grumbled, "But he's in here, all right, just like you left him. He's up there." What the Symbiot meant was, of the many towers and spires of the castle, only a handful were left now. The very tallest was among them. The "attic" where D had found the grisly coffin holding his mother preserved in eternity.

That was where the entity in D's left hand indicated where the Ancient Ancestor would be.

How could anyone come here anyway? No one would imagine something would be living here. Maybe it was due to D's bloodline that he had made it to the castle unchallenged even with his guest in tow.

The woman silenced her worries at once. But she remained very close by. D seemed not to mind having her close to him. Her hand sought his many times, but whenever she came close to grasping it, it slipped away like smoke. She had to be strong, at any rate. She was failing at resisting her bloodlust at any rate. She may as well try to remember how to be a strong woman and quit jumping at shadows.

They entered the massive doors. The defense system inside the walls, the stones that D had told her about, apparently were non-functioning now. She made sure to watch her step all the same, stepping only where D's feet had gone before her. He still left not even a single flake stirred by his presence, even by the subtle rippling of the midnight cloak.

As soon as the massive doors closed behind them, D stood very still for a long time. The floors here were covered in centuries of dust. Through an enormous hole in the roof, snow had collected on the cracked marble floors near the foot of the stairs which hardly seemed strong enough to bear their weight. The grand ceiling's massive chandaliers glittered no more. The enormous pillars so wide in circumference that it defied practicality alone still remained, though some of them began to crumble from the top down. The walls had broken facades carved into them - angels and demons twisted in varying configurations of copulation.

It seemed to signify something darker and more lustful in nature that lived here. The angels were all women, valkyries wielding swords in some poses, while in others they submitted to the winged demon, but only with a knife pressed to the demon's chest where its heart would be.

Miranda looked at all of these things and wondered if the great one expressed his passion in this macabre artwork for a reason. Maybe he had changed his decor a few times while he had been trapped in here. She looked straight ahead at last, and finally followed D through the long entry hall toward the stairway leading to the second floor manse.

As they reached the first step, she immediately felt the crushing presence deepen against her. She fell against D and gasped, looking up. At the top of the stairs, and indeed, all around them, a thousand glistening red eyes peered at her. She saw gaping mouths full of rows upon rows of razor sharp canines, gnashing and smiling a wickedly insane smile. She clutched at his cloak, terror threading its way into the marrow of her bones.

"D-- D, this isn't right."

"Just stay close to me." His hand found its way to hers at last, and she latched onto it tightly, her other hand gripping the sword she carried at her hip.

The shadows thickened into one congealed, writhing, furious mass. It seemed to gaze at them with nothing but unyielding contempt. Or maybe it was just Miranda.

They ascended slowly and carefully, D confident of the stability of the stairs as if he attended to them personally himself. The throng of pulsing eyes followed them, making a perfect circle around them. It was their escort, she realized. What would they do if she suddenly decided to detach herself from D and advance alone? Probably tear her to pieces.

They proceeded left along a corroded hallway. Paintings had been torn down, ripped apart. The glory of the Nobility seemed to have no place in this house of the Great One at all. It was as if he could care less about his home. It had fallen to ruin along with everything else in the world of night. The great one had no heart to keep a house that no one visited any longer. And why bother when he was a prisoner himself?

The black, gorgeous figure moved confidently through this decaying hell with the woman he loved clutching his hand like a child. For that is exactly how she felt.

They reached yet a second set of stairs, considerably narrower that went straight up. The shadows clustered even closer, creeping like a black liquid along the floor. A set of teeth with the shape of a dog's head and six eyes suddenly appeared and snapped at her, taking a piece of her own cloak and shaking its head viciously back and forth. There was a bright, blinding flash and the canine monster's visage split in two vertically. It fell apart, and a deep booming laughter reached them from above.

D's jaw was set as firmly as thousand-year-old granite. He flicked the gore from the blade and casually returned it to its sheath when the shadows and the eyes retreated to a more respectable distance. But the laughter continued for some time and only grew louder as they continued up the stairs.

As they reached a height of about fifty feet, suddenly a voice as maddeningly cold as it was velvetine froze her blood. "I'm eager to see you. Won't you come to me a little more quickly?" The words dissolved into further cackling. Suddenly D jerked her up three steps - behind him as he turned around - and slashed a gathering of figures. Each one seemed to bear the armor of an era long forgotten, but they fell without laying a scratch on D. Then D flicked the blade left, then right, and up and down - arrows had fired upon them from another gathering of enemies that sprang from the walls. D stared coldly, then turned at once, ordering Miranda to run the stairway.

Each and every arrow or throwing spear seemed to fall just short of impaling Miranda through. She was trying to catch up with D, but he of course was much faster. She knew he was not going as fast as he could, either. He leapt a gap in the stairs she didn't see, fell several feet, but her cloak snapped open to slow her fall and she barely caught the edge of the stairs. She scampered up, felt a cold hand clamp around her wrist and pull her the rest of the way up.

She had three arrows puncturing through her. She continued on regardless, for none of them had hit her heart. The wounds she sustained would be gone by tomorrow night; now they still had to hurry the last few feet to the door at the top while murderous shadows formed out of the darkness possessing what felt like this entire tower. They continued to fire. Others leapt in D's path, but he cut them down one at a time.

The door burst open before D had even touched it - his left hand was lifted toward it. The pair ran through it at once. Then D and Miranda halted to an immediate stop.

The woman began to pull arrows from her body. But they dissolved in her fingers, leaving an unpleasant residue - like old, congealing blood. The punctures stung and burned horribly.

They had stopped in the room just before the attic. The tower was several hundred feet tall, the tallest tower visible from outside the castle itself. D's sword was smeared with black gore. He flicked it again. The writhing blackness seethed clawed up D's legs and calves, but he stood calmly and without moving another inch.

In fact, the room lacked much description other than the shadows because that was all D could see. There was a cracked window providing little starlight. It was little more than a port hole.

"Stand down," D ordered to no one in particular. Nothing happened. D lifted his eyes slowly. "Alucard, I order you to stand down."

A hiss of displeasure from the general atmosphere ensued. But shadows all over the room retreated to the same point - underneath the crack in the door leading into the room with the cardboard boxes and the grisly coffins.

D sheathed the sword and walked to the door. He raised his hand to his lips, then moved it to the highly advanced locking mechanism beside the doorknob. A drop of crimson fell from his thumb to the small glass recepticle. There was a moment when the light turned yellow, then green. Some complicated machinery clicked inside the door and then hissed open.

D entered. Miranda held back, shuddering. The shadows may have retreated, but D's figure struck her as terrifying. Those creatures were nothing she had ever seen before. But rather than wait out in this room, she followed him slowly and cautiously.

The room was not as D had described it. But it was furnished as if it were perfectly new. The decor was nothing she had seen before but it had a flavor of old Victorian, with a modern twist. Or at least it might have been modern countless millenia ago. In the back, in front of a large stained glass display picturing nothing in particular but a riot of different colors, a silhouetted figure sat in a high-backed chair, legs crossed, and hands innocently folded on his knee.

D stopped exactly fourteen feet away from the edge of the enormous wooden desk. In this room, D looked like a phantasmic intruder. The other figure looke uncommonly handsome, dark black hair left long and luxuriant, his fine-featured face only now beginning to show signs of pleasure.

"Good of you to visit at last," said the man. Miranda could not believe this to be Alucard, although she doubted herself when he turned his cold, calculating, beyond-ancient eyes on her. They were crimson and pulsed the same way the ones on the stair had.

"Who is this?" He smiled as he appraised her callously. D quietly stepped in front to obstruct his view of Miranda. "How rude of me. Hmph. Dog that you are, I will tell you this: I am Dracula... or to this whelp, Alucard. As you can see, you're quite safe from me. For now."

"I am Miranda Delaclaire." She tried her best to wrestle the fear from her voice. "I'm pleased to meet you."

"An iota of respect. And none of that 'great one' bullshit, that's good. I am tired of it, as you might imagine." His eyes would have devoured her, she was sure. She stepped around D, not wanting at all to appear as if she were the one hiding.

He _did_ look at her. She tried not to meet his eyes. Instinct told her not to. But he held her gaze for an eternity. Limbs grew cold and stiff, her thirst becoming a nauseating reminder of what she was. She _needed_ to feed. Looking at Dracula/Alucard, she realized that he had been trapped here without sustenance for an age. He looked at her like a morsel of rotted meat but something that would do to fill his hungry belly.

D's voice broke the disconcerting stare. "I've come to check on you."

"My prison is holding up well, if that's what you're after." Alucard looked at D in a different light. He looked at him with some admiration, fiery contempt and, unbelievably, longing. "Unless you would like to entertain me, my child. I do so long for a decent battle. I don't think anyone believes I'm still up here, and none of them are stupid enough to just walk right in. Of course, I cannot leave at all."

"Maybe if you put up a For Sale by Owner," said a coarse voice somewhere near D's waist.

"That bizarre creature is still with you, I see." His lips curved into a dark twisted grin. Lucifer himself would have looked at it and felt mildly ill at ease. "That innocent wisp of a woman isn't so innocent, is she? What a treat to see you finally break into your manhood at last."

"Have you seen or heard from Rhea?" D completely ignored the last comment with his usual sanguine grace.

The Great One's smile twisted even further but this seemed to be a change for the worse. His head cocked to one side and he uncrossed his long limbs. The tall figure uncoiled itself from the high-backed chair like a serpent. "I have not a clue who you're talking about."

"So you've completely forgotten about the woman who would have been my surrogate mother? The woman you wanted to replace my true mother?"

This suddenly riled the monstrosity before them even further. He cleared the table in a bound so sudden and blindingly fast, it sent a whirlwind of displaced air molecules smacking against Miranda's face. She had not even seen him jump or bunch his muscles. Where had he gone? He was standing in front of D, not an inch of space separating them, glaring with unbridled hatred and peerless sorrow fighting for dominance in his gaze.

"I will not have you speak of Integra again, you ungrateful shit. No one could replace her. That was and always will be my mistake. I have relived it ever since you walked away from here with blood on your lips and genocide on your mind. I have thought of absolutely nothing else. For the last dozen or so millenia, rarely has any other thought occupied my vast and insatiable heart!"

And he slapped D for his insolence. The blow sent a shock of horror through Miranda. D's head jerked to the side, and immediately began to bruise. But the superficial injury began to fade in less than a second. In three seconds, it was gone. D had softened the blow by moving his head and also lifting his left hand to buffer the other's strike by catching him by the forearm. He let his father's arm go, meeting his fury with a sort of genuine patience - like dealing a child's tantrum.

Dracula stared with impotent emotions rampant in his expression before he somehow miraculously schooled them once again. Miranda did not think he would apologize, since he might think himself above such simple courtesies. However, she was shocked almost as much as a few seconds before.

"Forgive me, Hunter. I have enough on my mind... or nothing at all."

D dipped his head slightly, the only sign that he accepted. "I apologize for interrupting your lamentations, father. I only came to ask if you would like to visit Rhea."

"She's haunting that place still? A man intruded here once last millenia, thinking of stealing what was left in here. I caught him and drank his blood, and from it I learned that he had camped at the orphanage where he was visited upon by a lamenting spirit that sighed and wailed, ruining his good night's rest."

"So you know of her condition."

"An otherwise unimportant matter to me. You don't have to be a nosferatu to be eternal. She must have loved those half-blooded children quite a bit. Such a service is missed this day and age."

"I don't know what she wants. I come to visit her to check back with her. Now I think I know what she needs to do." There was an eternity before the next phrase. "But you must come."

Dracula's eyes gleamed with an energy that seemed like crimson torchlights focused to redhot temperatures.

"You would bring the Devil out of the basement and set him on the world." His narrow, hard features contorted like a demon's into a wide, toothy smile. "Are you prepared? Should I say, is your blood strong enough?"

"Her blood flows just as strongly through my veins," D answered softly but with loaded intent, his eyes growing stony and dark.

The woman Miranda was beside herself with confusion. _Is he talking about my blood? Who is talking about?_

Answers would come with time; they would come only until she could afford to interrupt this lethal reunion. She felt like a small, small child stepping into an enormous room where something very important was being undertaken by people much larger than herself. Puny though she was, she still somehow had room to feel annoyed to be so left out. She knew Dracula knew it as well, but he acknowledged her with his eyes for choosing to stay quiet.

"Will you test it now, boy? Before you drag me from my cave with mere words as chains?"

Dracula opened his arms and let his shadow fall against the walls, growing, pulsing, opening the doors to the massive reserve of power. He did not unleash it, but merely opened 'himself' - revealing the storm of power manifested in his very body. Like opening a door to offer a view of the room inside, and if the walls of Alucard's room could bear any description, it would be this: dripping with blood, the audio ambience resonating screams and moans and curses and cries of the damned forever trapped in a turbid purgatory. All of these souls belonged to Alucard, who had collected them in his long, long years of servitude in a time before vampires fancied themselves 'noble'.

Across from the devil stood a black cloaked knight, impassively viewing the monster called 'father' to only One. He stared at the other man with a visage like marble, which seemed to slowly melt from impassivity to sorrow and finally to, bizarrely, a smile.

He lifted his voice in command. "Alucard, kneel and acknowledge he who has chained you. You are called servant; I am therefore the master. Call me by my true name and come at my feet. By my blood are you leashed. Let my voice be heard from miles, over oceans, over mountains and fields to command you. Do you understand? Hear me, then, and obey.

"Servant, kneel."

With a slight tick at the corners of his unsmiling mouth, Dracula lowered his arms and called his fiends back to his body. He was staring at Deron with an unfathomable hatred and longing; he was pulling away from Deron but some part of him was inching toward him, a pact older than Deron himself bading the Great Ancestor to obey. To be commanded gave the ultimate nosferatu a chill of regret and familiarity. Without ceremony, Deron had inherited a most powerful and deadly weapon that he dare not use. The vampire straightened back slowly and carefully, but moved stiffly as if something invisible made his limbs aching. Who could dare command this creature of unfathomable power? The devil himself could not challenge a demon like Dracula, the No-life King, the Great Ancestor.

Unbelievably, as naturally as if Dracula had done it all his existence, he stepped forward and curled down and knelt on one knee, palms spreading on the floor to either side of his body with his head bent down with the unmistakable attitude of obeisance. His straight ebony locks hid the pained grimace. His face was suffocated in shadow.

"Master," Alucard intoned with difficulty, the only true sign that such a word had not come across his tongue in millenia. "Command me."

Miranda thought her whole existence would come crashing down around her ears. She was still stunned to silence, but could not help the soft little cry that came from her throat. Deron - D, the vampire hunter - spoke words that made little sense to her. Then she saw the Great Ancestor himself, the harbinger of the Long Night on this planet, kneel like a common waif.

It made absolutely no sense at all.

But D seemed to take it in stride, neither revelling nor rejecting toward this position of authority. He said, "Follow me." Then he turned and headed out the door to the room and down the stairs. Dracula rose in one fluid motion and headed after him, the pair of dark tall men leaving Miranda alone in a room full of memories.

"W-Wait for me!" she cried suddenly, beating a hasty retreat from the room and cursing her own ineptitude to keep up.

Would this mystery resolve itself with time? Or would she be left, as always, forever in the dark?


	20. Hunting Evil Is Never Enough

A/N: Finally an update. I hope you all like this one. It's kind of short, I guess. But don't be afraid. Lots of stuff happens on in here. I dunno; writing feels kind of chaotic write now. I have so many ideas. this chapter just feels like a stupid mishmash of both. With lots of caffeine.

**A Dhampir Story  
****Chapter XX**

* * *

Leaving the castle, without the Count's terrible phantoms - ghostly but very, very real - was like leaving a boneyard. The demons left their lethal hideaways. Now those same places, without gleaming crimson eyes or fangs or claws were simply hollow sad places. The vaulting ceilings no longer kept hovering cocoons armed with teeth when they engaged in their hunt at flight. Doorways opened on rooms that had not seen an occupant in thousands of years. The crumbled stairway no seemed desolate rather than menacing. The light-footed vampires moved down along the ancient passageways at a mortal's pace.

There was one hallway they took that looked desolate that remained in good shape. There was something strange about the walls, the surfaces - they were too bright, glossed too much. D scoured his mind to find memories of this hallway, but he could not remember exploring it that fateful day. When he tried to remember it, however, he saw it in a different light. Every object in his mind's eye at a different eye level. That planter seemed much smaller to him now than it had been. The wall length mirror much taller. The painting of a beautiful, stern looking woman with long dark hair and glasses farther up along the dark walls.

As familiar to D this was, it was more incredibly alien to Miranda who had never seen too many insides of a Noble's home before, much less the castle of the oldest and most hated of all Nobility. This hallway was new to her for another reason as well.

"We didn't go this way before," Miranda pointed out. Then, not wanting to get any attention from the black-hearted Count, she whispered to D, "Why is he leading us out this way?"

"I ordered him to escort us out, so that's what he's doing."

Even though she knew D often did not look at people when he spoke to them, she wished that for an instant, he would look at her - and in that one, long look, reassure her that everything was going to be fine and according to plan. But the fledgling vampiress gritted her teeth and hissed softly, "I know he can hear me. But I want _you_ to answer." She gave a pointed look at Alucard, who walked ahead of them. "How do you know he'll... do everything you say? What was all that ceremony for?"

As the vampires moved along, it gave D a little time to think of a way to answer - or perhaps buy him time to dodge the question altogether, Miranda suspected with a scowl. But then his soft, musical voice began to speak and of course she listened. As she did, she began to notice a common theme with the paintings on the walls. All of them were portraits of the same woman, or were old faded photographs of the same group of people. Beautiful people, too. Even the older man, with a sharp cunning monocle, stared at her with a secretive lethality that seemed to jump from the canvas.

_Whose clever hand painted these_? she wondered in silent awe.

"My mother," D whispered as he nodded at the woman. Her beauty was astonishing. More astonishing was the cruel hard look in her peridot blue eyes. The painting itself seemed to have the same commanding effect as if she were standing before her in the flesh. "She was a beautiful woman. My father hated and loved her. In a time before time, it's said, she actually used him as a tool to destroy other vampires. Back then, they were just leeches sucking on the wealth of mankind as well as the blood."

"But what happened?"

"A war. Some cataclysm. I don't know." His eyes clouded a bit with worry. "Everything fell apart... and the line between master and servant blurred. Thus, in the chaos after, I was conceived."

"A child of war." The voice cut through the conversation like a poisoned knife. Alucard looked back toward them, and out of the corner of his eye, she met his gaze. It chilled her to the very marrow of her bones once again. She looked away, loathing that he could make her so afraid. The vampire's eyes were glazed... and something in them scared her and enticed her. She looked at the painting of the woman and Alucard.

"When the war ruined the world, I was her instrument." The nosferatu swayed to the cadence to his words very slightly, reciting this old tale as if he had done it thousands of times, out loud, perhaps only to himself in the lonely crypt-like dark. "More and more I killed - all for her. I scoured the country and kingdoms besides to reap my own kind's ruin. I hurried their end, but the war raged on. The vampire covered the entire world, consuming all like a plague. The cause seemed... hopeless. But she... My Integra... she was as bloodthirsty as they. She never hesitated once to send me forth like a torch into the darkness - and burn every last one she could find. I had no other desire than to obey.

"But it seemed the longer we fought, the more hopeless it seemed. Integra was mad. She did not want to admit to surrender. Neither did I," Alucard continued. A bloodlust filled his eyes that was different from that of hunger. Darker. Sharper. Focused. "But it was no longer in her best interest to fight. I had to save her from herself. She had lost an eye to battle. I was afraid to see her slowly tear herself apart as she engaged in battle."

"Afraid?" Miranda snorted. Then she was slashed with such a look that made her stop short and nearly stumble into the wall, eyes wide with fear and almost pain. If Alucard had struck her with his fist, the result would have been exactly the same.

"If you can believe it, I convinced her to abandon her cause at last. At the time, there were three of us. She can't tell even today if she hated me more for it, or fell in love with me. Integra was always one to show her feelings in strange and unexpected ways."

"Three?"

"Look well." He nodded at one of the older paintings. They had backtracked to view it. "The female in the uniform." His lips smirked and he muttered under his breath something that sounded like "Police" something.

"What happened to her?" Miranda asked with as much polite modesty as she could. But Alucard turned away without answering and continued down the hallway. The track took them to the familiar great hall with the winding stairway. They moved to the front door which was closed shut tightly. D stopped suddenly, as if jolted.

"Oh, yeah," he said quietly and with some disappointment.

A sliver of winter daylight crept across the floor through a window that should have been covered by the hard metal bomb shields that had fallen askew with time. Miranda jerked away from it with a feline hiss.

"We'll have to stay here for the day." D looked at his father without any compunctions about it. He turned right around and started to look around for somewhere for the three vampires to sit tight before the night journey to the orphanage in the evening. "For now, show us where the guest rooms lie."

All around the castle that day, it had begun to snow with thick, dangerous puffy flakes. The tracks, if any, were smothered by the fresh fall. Sunlight barely breached the clouds, although it was still visible. Miranda was resting in one of the guest coffin rooms, in a coffin as sumptuous as a queen-sized bed. D did not sleep. He sat awake throughout the day, at a small dining table in the guest room with his legs crossed and his eyes half-closed. His relaxed posture belied his true inner thoughts. The other vampire, the No-Life King, was also awake. He sat across from his son, mirrored perfectly, although his eyes were closed completely as if to shut the sight of him from his eyes and mind.

The sun reached its zenith. Both creatures of the night showed signs of discomfort to the trained eye, relaxed as they were, but the daylight even through thick wintry clouds still caused discomfort. For several hours after Miranda had gone to her day's rest, they had not spoken a phrase to one another.

Finally the lord asked, "Drink?"

"No."

A pained wrinkle appeared at the corner of his eyes. "Wine, I meant."

"No, thank you." The dhampir tried to sound his best to sound delicately apologetic about turning down his offer. He offered the slightest of smiles, only because this was his father and, for lack of a better reason, he wanted to make him feel appreciated for trying to show him genuine hospitality.

The message went through clearly. Alucard saw him smiling, now his eyes were slitted and somehow warm in a way.

"No one has come to see you. Not even the uniformed girl came to find you after all these years."

"She found her own way. She hid herself, preferred quiet to glory. I would have preferred her to stay the hell away from me. Her very existence was a bit of a drain on my patience." But there was still fondness in his voice.

D knew his father was lonely. But for such a creature, could there be any comfort?

* * *

The night opened up at last; Miranda woke up, took a drink of thousand-year-old blood stored in nuclear-power freezers. Miranda thanked Alucard begrudgingly for the drink. It restored her strength to a noticable degree; he did not respond to her at all, but instead just looked at D sourly expecting his next command.

"We'll take the road again on horseback. We may not be able to avoid detection from passersby this way, but it is the fastest pathway."

"You say that as if you expect people to be out there."

"Nearby villages no longer fully fear this place. They might come to harvest the wood from the forest and the herds of large roebuck are hunted for their meat, bones, and horns." D fastened a saddle bag to his mount before he returned himself to the saddle once again, gripping the reins.

Miranda was watching Alucard, standing alone in the brisk night wind with a long dark vermillion cloak. He rode no such thing as superfluous as a steed.

"Can you keep up?" D asked of him, with a sliver of playfulness in his voice.

"You won't see me. But I will be with you, boy. So don't think I have abandoned my duty to you."

"Duty, is it?" the dhampir murmured. But then he kicked his heels into his steed's flanks and started forward into a swift trot. As the second horsebound rider followed, Alucard seemed to lean forward ever so slightly after them and then - vanish completely. All across the twilit sands of bone, an oily mist had fallen to obscure all.

Through the mist, the moon rose again. A cloudless night was viewed as either lucky or unlucky - for there were such creatures that fed from lunar illumination like werewolves. Not only that, it lent the night a threatening air, as if the moon were helping unwary travellers to see their fate before it savagely fell upon them. Alucard stayed hidden as promised, but D did not seem to care whether he was in sight or not. Miranda, however, felt no such comfort. She knew from the demonstration of his power the previous night that, although he was not seen, he was there and every inch of her skin crawled with the sensation of him watching her at times.

The desert was crossed in a matter of minutes. They sped along with a demon's speed. Nothing in the snow-laden sands stirred; all was deathly quiet except for the shape of an enormous owl crossing the moon only once, but it never appeared again since the thick mist covered their tracks and thick-packed snow on top of the sand muffled the horse's hoofbeats.

They encountered a wall of dense trees suddenly in mist. D seemed to stop instinctively, or else rider and horse would have crashed headlong through the forest and lamed the beast and possibly taken a bruise or two for his recklessness. Miranda halted up beside him. D looked at the trees for a moment, then glanced up at the sky, before turning to the right and continuing at a slower pace following the treeline. D sought the missing path that would allow them through the woods, although now somehow it had eluded them or moved itself.

Finally they came to it at last. D guided the cyborg horse through the trees. Naturally such a tightly enclosed space with thick snow would have deterred a horse, but either D's presence itself had taken its anxiety away or the horse was genetically designed to be bold. The cyborg steed moved unerringly forward, stomping through the snow. The mist faded. The road ahead of them was occupied by several figures on horseback, the woods cut away to form a semi-circular emptiness that was not there the night before. There was no stirring, no movement from beneath the untouched virgin snow.

D looked it over carefully, decided that he would go forward none the less. And forward they went. The woods were not empty. There were still a few wolves and giant bears that roamed and scavenged the woods for their hidden bounty. D could see the shapes of the sly hunters gliding through the forests, the moonlight glinting off their reflective eyes and dagger-like teeth. The beasts kept to themselves, for those of Noble blood would forever be their masters.

D wondered if Zhou was among them, a ghost among living flesh. If he was, could the wolves tell him apart from their own? Did they accept him blindly among their pack as a strange secret hunter?

All along the forest's edge, the snow had piled in drifts. The wind had been blustery that day, but tonight it was as crisp and still as death, preserving their moment in travel with perfect clarity now that the mist had fallen away. The No-Life King walked among them also unseen, keeping his own senses alert, taking joy in the strange freedom with a shockingly reserved outlook. Millennia in confinement could not make him lose his cool. Now he was outside in the night, free, observing the strange changes the world had undertaken while he was locked within his own home.

The female vampiress rode at D's side, the two horses running abreast. Suddenly D kicked the cyborg horse into a headlong rush through a thinner layer of snow where the trees had grown over the path, their branches heavily laden with snow and hidden dangers. In a few moments, they had navigated the ancient confusion of spells and dimensional traps and reached the fork in the road. They continued along the main road until they came across the orphanage, hunkered sleepily under a blanket of ivory.

But the place was no longer abandoned. In the wide front yard that had once been enclosed by a tall electric fence, several vehicles were parked and a large burning bonfire was in the center of the yard, casting a blood-like glow on the snow. There were nuclear-powered vehicles and lanterns besides. The lanterns threw off no heat, so the necessity for the fire accounted for its presence. The men all around the fireplace started at a shout from below. One among their number had spied the rider's silhouettes against the moonlit forest backdrop and road.

The riders sat very still, watching from a distance. A mist was rising from the lake beyond the orphanage proper. Curling, reaching fingers of moisture arched toward the air but no one noticed it thicken and take more definitive shape.

The entire camping group rode up to meet them. Their shadowed forms became clearer; all of them hardened warrior men armed with diamond-coated weapons, energy weapons, and old-fashioned gunpowder rifles. Most of them were of broad shoulder, highly muscled, and thick beards white with frost. All of them looked at the two figures with feverishly anxious eyes.

The proposed leader - naturally the largest man in the bunch - spoke up to them. He hardly wasted any time. "Go away. We don't welcome strange folk coming up in the night to our camp. I won't tell you twice."

"We have just as much right to be here as anyone else!" Miranda snapped. "We have business here besides and it doesn't involve any of you."

The mist thickened more. Then it seemed to take the men no time at all to notice it.

"What the hell?!" cried a man with an energy rifle. He turned the weapon on the very mist itself. "What is this shit?"

"Don't do it," D murmured, barely audible. But the leader must have had exceptional hearing as well as size.

He wheeled on the dhampir. "What's that you said? Don't do what, stranger?" He drew a massive sword from the sheath on his back. Waves of heat rolled from its surface, rippling in the air. His muscles bunched and flexed beneath his super-dense warm bodysuit. "Answer me! Don't do what?!"

In the night, some feet toward the edge of the group, a man screamed in the darkness. D closed his eyes and drew the slender, deadly blade from his back. The large man roared in fury, swinging the heat-searing weapon at the youthful beauty. Miranda's horse reared and both woman and horse screamed a challenge full of fury and fear.

D's mount whirled to present its left side to the gigantic man. The heated blade came sideways as if to cut the horse out from under the dhampir. D somehow deflected the swing and jerked sideways from the massive strength behind the giant's blow. The sound of steel on steel rang like a bell; the warrior band exploded into action. Then the mist became a fog and then: an impenetrable darkness. The world vanished behind a sudden veil as if everyone had been struck blind. Men cried out in fury as they blindly struck out in the night, trying to find themselves in the blanket of emptiness.

D and Miranda could still see. By some miracle, their sight was spared. What they saw would have frozen the blood faster than the winter around them. There were eyes again - but not just the eyes but silhouettes rising and forming out of the shadowy substance flowing like slow-moving oil around the men. The silhouettes were shaped like men; armored creatures, armored men, beasts, and more modern-dressed figures. Whether once human or monsters themselves, D could not say. They all shuffled toward the nearest victim of blindness as if hungry.

"Command me," Alucard's mind whispered into D's thoughts. "They will bring nothing but death to everything and everyone in their path. Monsters cloaked in human flesh - only their flesh is merely human and nothing more. They care only for themselves in a world that has shown them nothing but how cruel it can be. So they are crueler, and make the world worser for it. So command me. You have the power to do away with another smear on the memory of this place. Do they not defile this place with their very presence?"

"Who am I to judge them?" D replied calmly.

"They are murderers and you know it. You can see it in their very eyes."

Shockingly, D shuddered. The men could see what was hunting them now in the dark. They started to holler threats, then began to fire into the mass of darkness around them. Even the big giant man had abandoned his weapon for firearms - but no one hit their mark. The quivering mass of Alucard's minions waited, snarling and snapping. Ravening maws opened and closed, as if already eager to fill their mouths with warm, hot meat.

"Look at the vehicles!" Miranda shouted suddenly. D did look. The vehicles and trucks were out of bounds from the living darkness. He saw in between long metal bars a small face peering from between them, then a second and a third. They were frightened children, not older than eighteen and no younger than four years. They were bundled yet cold and starved.

"Who are they?"

"Orphans. Slaves, maybe. On their way to market farther north." His voice was hard, stone cold, and empty of all reserve.

"Well?" Alucard chuckled, though there was a disgust in his voice too from this new mark of injustice toward the humans. "I am your tool now, too. You may put an end to them as swift as a striking hawk. But I can deliver justice with enough slow and painful clarity as to make them weep on their way to Hell!"

The dhampir held his sword down near his side. The horses were stamping and very anxious to get away. D turned away, skirting around the shadows. "Make them all suffer. Let none live. I command you."

Then he and Miranda raced down toward the young children in their cages down below. The bonfire illuminated their tiny pale faces; most of them were human. Non-humans, or half-blooded children, were isolated in a much smaller and draftier steel carriage. They opened this cage first of all with one swift blow from D's sword to the cage lock. It swung open. The children rushed toward the bonfire and watched with stricken, horrified faces as their captives were lost in the thick, roiling blanket of teeth just up the driveway. The screams of the men were muffled, but their pain was unmistakable.

One of the younger children began to weep with joy.

The voice that commanded the devourer of all life, the No-Life King, spoke to the children gently as he opened the cages for the humans as well. "You are all equals in each other's eyes, as of this moment. You were all slaves, but now you are all free."

"We're free, true, but now we're all going to die," an older boy complained, his rough complexion showing years of days toiling in the sunlight since he was very young. "The cold will kill us all before hunger."

"We'll hunt for you," Miranda said kindly. Then all eyes were on her, round small faces eager for love and attention and yet something in Miranda scared them. They starved for a mother's love - but she was no mortal like they were. She was a Noble. The unnatural blood sang in her veins and showed itself in her very voice. "We will make sure you are fed until we can take you somewhere safer than here."

"You're all Nobles. How can we trust you?" the same older boy had said. He glared at them, huddled in the forefront. Already he was looked up to for daring to speak against their saviors. But he truly did not believe they were saved - not quite yet.

Suddenly a familiar face popped up from the sea of expressive eyes. It was pale but familiar scars made themselves known in the firelight. "They're definitely trustworthy, kids. For these people are my friends and I'm so glad to see them!"

It was Mouka. He had been captured among the people at the last town where they stayed for his outlandish habit of calling forth fire. His eyes were glistening with grateful tears and he threw himself at D and hugged him tightly. "Oh, boy, you can't imagine how glad I was when they let slip where we were going! Then I felt I had a chance of running into you."

D offered the slightest of smiles. But he did not share the same exuberance Mouka did.

"Children, listen well! This isn't just any Noble. He's the greatest vampire hunter in the whole world. His name is D, and you can bet he's the safest place in the Frontier right now!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Miranda muttered under her breath, turning to her side, but she was glad to see that the fire eater was well also.

These were darker, harder times than any of the children had known before. These new young faces were cheerlessly watching the darkness beyond the light of the flames as Alucard feasted on the impetuous slave traders, feasted on their pain and screams and their blood. It was nothing the children had seen before, nor would lay eyes on again in all their lives.

The smell of death and fresh blood stirred Miranda's bloodlust. Finally she turned away from all the young, warm creatures warming themselves by the fire. Mouka helped pass around some food from the slaves' store. She walked away, toward the edge of the lake, where so many memories had been forged for D.

The cold press of D's presence whispered across her back. She was weak with thirst. "D..." Her eyes closed and everything seemed to fall out from under her feet. She leaned against the dhampir's chest that made no sound at all. "D, I'm so thirsty... what can I do now? Mouka is here, but so are those children, and I'm... I'm going mad." She swallowed. "I want to join Alucard in his... in his punishing of those men. I want to at least slake my thirst on someone who deserves to die."

"Only to be thirsty again," D whispered. "Survival is a full-time job."

"I can't do it anymore. Blood pills. Cold corpses of animals in the forest. I can't do it." She slumped and everywhere around her, she could almost see blood dancing on the cold winter breeze.

His hands, always strong and there forever, slid away from her shoulders. "Go."

Miranda turned slowly, stepping onto the icy lake. Her eyes widened fearfully. "D..."

"Go. It will take decades, a couple of centuries, to be able to go without feeding nightly. Thousands of lives. Are you sure there are that many evil people in the world, Miranda? Are there so many people that deserve such a fate? And could you find them every night?"

Her face became pinched with pain and moral anguish. Her lips were stained with her own blood as she bit her lip. Then she slowly walked around him with her head bowed shamefully, creeping toward the killing ground where Alucard took part in his own feast. She joined the darkness inside after standing at the brink, watching the madness unfolding, her own fate illustrated in the bloodbath inside. Then she vanished within, folded delicately inside. She would emerge - fully-blooded, full-fledged Noble.

* * *

Dawn again. Miranda slept without dreams in the basement like before. Alucard stood outside in the dawn light before he went inside, uncomfortable in its light. Children were sleeping, packed into the dormitory room. There were scores more children here than the building was originally intended to house, but with blankets and clothes and combined body heat, the structure provided easy warmth.

The two Nobles stood back to back in the doorway leading into the main dining room where the fireplace crackled and where Mouka, too, reclaimed lost hours of sleep. The Nobles watched the children sleeping.

D's lips barely moved. "Miranda must go."

"I saved her one. He's gagged and tied in one of the vans. He will trouble no one, after what horrible visions I visited on his pathetic mind." Alucard smiled cruelly. "Don't think I do not keep her needs in mind, child. After all, she's your dear precious one."

"I spared her because I love her." His voice barely whispered over the second to last word. His eyes frosted over and then heated suddenly. Tears threatened, but never fell. He was too far gone for human tears. "Now I have to watch her go and hope that she never falls in front of my blade in the future. At the same time, I hope she has good fortune finding evil men in the world."

"Or you could give her to me," Alucard said, tipping his head back slightly as he considered it. "I will take her unto myself. There, she can live forever. She may not remember all she is or was, but of my champions, few forget who they loved and hated."

"In your mind, none are free." D slipped from his side and turned toward the windows, his arms crossed. "You make a prisoner of everyone. Even those you love." He was talking of the spirit of Rhea, who dwelled here, hiding from all these living creatures. And at that hidden jab, Alucard suddenly snarled and grabbed D by the back of his neck and spun him around, a fury so wide and deep it saw no end burning in those infinite eyes.

"Watch what you say. I come at your bidding, so now I am your prisoner. And don't forget what _you_ are!" He hissed passionately and furiously into D's ear. Then he released him and stormed away, melting like a ghost himself through the basement door to find his rest.

D was trembling ever so minutely, but he was not afraid of his father. He was afraid of Miranda - and what would happen tonight when she awoke. What would happen when Rhea selected her moment to appear to Alucard and tell him what she wanted him to know.


	21. This is the End

AU: Omg! This chapter feels like a terrible soap opera. As does much of my fanfiction. Well, hardly. Sorry about the lack of updates. I just moved into a new apartment, and I'm getting internet hooked up fairly soon (in fact, by the time this is posted, I will have had internet to do so. Internet that I pay for myself. GO ME! WOOOOOO!!!) Okay. I'll shut up now.

**A Dhampir Story**

**Chapter XXI**

After the harsh words, raking through the sleepy silence like razor blades, D left to go outside. The children were safely tucked away, but food had already disappeared down their hungry gullets. The forest was full of bountiful meat that could be cooked over Mouka's dancing, leaping flames. It was a good day. Alucard stayed in the sanguine darkness away from the sun, positioned in front of the basement door. Vampires did not usually awaken during the day in thirst. They slept in death's embrace for the time when light seared the snow-covered hills. Except Alucard, who was less like a walking corpse and more like a living statue with his perfect aquine nose and unmoving eyelids.

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his essence choking off every iota of light from the corner where the basement door was located. His angular, sharp nose and hollow cheeks were pale, but his inky dark hair fell messily across his crimson eyes, which pinned on the tiny warm bodies nestled in the dormitory room, his brain and body echoing with D's earlier command to keep guard over the children.

D hunted the daylight snowscape for sustenance in the wilderness. He swept down on a small family of gigantic roe deer and slew the weakest with a decisive blow from the longsword. The carcass steamed when he dragged the butchered animal back to the orphanage. He had often gone with Zhou to hunt for food beyond the electric walls as a child; one of his lessons dedicated to the survival of a living bounty was to hunt for them and provide them with food - just enough to endure the journey to his payday. Those few jobs were rare. Zhou had showed him even more when they had traveled with their ill-fated rebel army.

Panting lightly in the frigid air, he did not want to think about Zhou. He didn't want to think about anything. He didn't want to think.

Because in the basement, a new monster slept. She would wake up so very thirsty - so very hungry. He didn't want to face that. His stomach turned over in his body cavity, his heart hammered so hard - just once - every time he thought about night fall.

He hated his father. He hated him almost as much as himself.

While the cooling meat slid underneath his fingertips, Mouka emerged from the guard house, rubbing his eyes. He had been instructed to stay in there, and with the chimney cleared, he had put the kindling D cut earlier that morning to good use.

"You work too hard," Mouka chided. He pulled out a long knife and started to portion the meat. They had very little in the way of spicing the meat to make it pallatable - most of the giant deer were mutants, but some were still more or clean clean of genetic impurities. Their meat tasted no different than the ancient, unaltered deer of ages past.

Genetic impurities. Was D the same thing as the deer walking in the trees? Then what was Alucard? Somehow, the phrase "father of lies" played in D's mind and he had a long pause before he answered Mouka.

"I prefer to keep myself busy." A still, deadened animal heart lay in a small bag. The dhampir set this aside. It was somehow something he had wanted to keep aside for - something. It was still warm.

Mouka smiled. "I can cook all this in my room so the kids don't wake up all ravenous." He grinned, his white scars standing out against his darkened skin. His falcon was lurking in the skies, watching, staying away. The battle against the slaver's had frightened her away and she was still wary of approaching the human companion that attracted such ill company.

"I'd appreciate it."

"You should try to rest." Mouka's eyes locked onto D's face, his breath vaporing into the air. "You shouldn't stay up so much during the day... You're-"

"I'm fine." It was so hard to maintain the familiar, machine-hard coldness. All of that was shredded to pieces in the face of his father, his own blood. He felt his power pulsing through every pore in his perfect, untouched skin. "I'm... exasperated."

"Miranda's going to have to go away, isn't she?" Mouka said, and his voice was almost child-like. The man had adored her since she had been human. He had loved her more honestly and openly than D himself; another score mark against the dhampir. If only he had let her be, let her walk away from him, let her hate him as she had, then becoming what he hunted would have been an unpleasant underthought.

Yet when he thought of her presence, thrumming with renewed strength, the touch of her lips at his skin and her fingers buried in his hair, his heart raced. He wanted her to stay - but he would only hold her back from herself. He had so much left to teach her, too.

With all the years behind him, D felt as if he was running out of time.

"I don't know yet. I don't want her to leave. But the thirst is a battle of willpower that few can win. Especially among the newly fledged." He let the thought hang for a moment, as pieces of animal flesh lay in neat piles, cut in perfect squares.

"I want her to be happy," Mouka muttered. "That's the very heart of it, and I think that's what you wish as well. Somehow... we've got to make that happen." His eyes glistened with passion. "Do you think there could be a way...? I mean, if we let... if we let you-know-who...?"

"No." The voice that broke from D's throat was twisted and hard with emotion, jagged like rocks at the bottom of a cold, thrashing sea. "Never."

"But in the end, it's whatever Miranda decides. Why are you being so goddam selfish?"

The dhampir twitched, fury twitching its angry fingers through his sinews. But Mouka was right. The frank and unassuming human had a way of saying what was truth without fear of the consequences. He stood up, picked up the mutant venison meat, and carried it to the guardhouse, where it would all be smoked and cooked throughout the day.

Some of the meat was left to be frozen in the snow and thawed later for those that preferred their meat bleeding. The man's footsteps crunched in the snow as he walked away. His presence had been scraping at D's psyche for as long as he had been talking to him. D pressed his left hand to his forehead and stared at the blood-stained ground. It was animal blood, but it was still blood. The ridiculous urge to bend down and lap it up from the snow was pulsing under his tongue.

"D, what are you so worked up about now?" His Symbiot grumbled harshly. "What do you think? Maybe being one of daddy's little soldiers will do her some good." He grinned. "Being a formless, spiritual entity that feeds on the suffering of others doesn't sound like a bad existence."

"It is when compared to being a vampire."

"Then what are you belly-achin' for? Why won't you let her be a bloodsucker, a do-gooder bloodsucker?"

"A Noble is still a Noble. None can be trusted. The thirst makes them what they are."

"You won't even give her a chance to prove herself to you. You thought so yourself a few minutes ago: you still got stuff to teach her and show her."

"When Zhou taught me, I had time. We don't have that luxury. I tried to teach her before. Now she's been blooded and it's too late. Besides. Zhou only knew that his methods would work for only a dhampir." Surprisingly, the hunter's lips quirked into a sort of smile. "We only need half as much blood to survive. Not even that." The smile faded quickly, like a pleasant dream. "It's not so true for the Nobility. New Nobles - ones that have existed for only the past two millenia - do not boast the same pedigree as my father. They will need to feed more often than those who come from a deeper line that claims Nosferatu heritage in their family tree. There are probably only three in the entire world now. Two of them are in space, gliding the centuries away in a starry paradise few can ever know. One of them walks among us now." His expression went dark and furious as he looked toward the shadowy hilltop where Alucard had been standing beneath the shadows of the trees alone.

Rhea had not yet made her appearance. It was without a doubt that she was waiting - waiting for some formula of events to call her forth. Was she then watching, even now, as D conducted this mysterious conversation with himself? What would she think of the Symbiot creature that lived in his hand, countless ages older than D himself?

With the animal heart set aside and still warm, he took off his glove and exposed his hand to the chill. He lifted the butchered animal heart and placed it against his left hand. His left hand fingers squeezed down; the heart seemed to shrink. Not only that, the quiet horrible sounds of tiny teeth began to gnash in the snowy quiet. Then it was over. D wiped the blood off in the snow and returned his glove to his hand.

Finally he tore himself away from the chilled animal blood and made his way up the hill without stirring a single flake of snow. The clear blue waters beneath the ice beckoned. It would be chillingly nice to simply float beneath there, so far removed from the harsh hot bloody reality that pervaded the earth above.

"The children are all sleeping. They won't come to for awhile; they've had such an ordeal. Come," said his father as he reached the top. "Look."

D stood beside him and looked.

The lake was frozen straight to the middle with about an inch layer of ice. But beneath the fading gray ice, dark enormous shapes moved beneath its surface. "Do you think they are starving under there in those cold black depths?"

"I think there is a bountiful world beneath there that no one else can see." D looked on as the enormous creatures bellowed in silence in the water. "Father. You must call to Rhea."

The man's dark countenance grew even darker. His lips pulled back in a heathen grimace and he felt every inch of muscle across his immortal body tighten in defense. "Call to her?"

"She hasn't shown herself to you?"

"I shouldn't have to call to her if she invited me here. I'm not familiar with the the hospitality of the dead." His voice hardened with annoyance. "I'm not here of my own free will, remember."

From the hilltop, D could see the entire compound. He could even see the grave clad in snow. His own adventures in the little cemetary were masked by the freshly fallen snow. The tiny grave with the miniature skeleton within was untouched after D had completed his investigation.

"Why haven't you ventured in there?" D asked politely. Alucard did not follow his gaze; he knew exactly where 'there' was.

Almost in a childish voice, the No-Life King answered. "Because it doesn't feel right." His skin goosebumped. He had not experienced the peculiar sensation in millenia. Then he shook off his discomfort and straightened his back, a lilting horrible laugh erupting from that grimace of a smile. "I don't think I know why. I want to." _Something calls me and repels me and I don't want to see it. As long as I exist, I never want to see what lies down there._

D looked at the profile of his father and shook his head ever so slightly. There was a small apologetic smile on his lips. "I know you're not a coward. Would it help if I let Mouka go with you?"

The Nosferatu snapped his eyes toward him to peer at him. His lips curved into a delicious smile. "I will wait until I feel the time is right. Would that be sufficient? That will leave you enough time to decide what to do with your woman."

So the jab was well deserved. D relaxed slowly, his hands unflexing underneath the black cape hung about his broad shoulders. He felt the sun, in spite of the leaves and clouds creeping steadily across the sky. He could smell blood and decay everywhere - but more blood now. Thirst crept along his veins, a creeping cold that would be devestatingly inconvenient should it reach his heart.

Alucard fixed his eyes on the dhampir. "You're going to be ill if you persevere." He reached out, but D immediately brushed the other's hand away from his cheek. "Maybe you won't feed from a human. I've seen you've had no qualms about feeding from others of your kind."

As soon as he said it, D's eyes grew icy. He stared at his father without offering him a reply. Of course he had not forgotten about the cruel and final brutality he had delivered on the one who had once called him 'brother'. He quivered noticably as the thirst possessed more of his limbs with weakness and need.

"You let your woman drink from you; your own code of honor doesn't allow you the same luxury, does it?" Once again the Nosferatu's hand lifted D's hair from his cheek and touched it. From his feeding, his skin was comparably hot on D's frigid skin. D expelled a faint hiss of air through his teeth. Alucard bared his teeth in dissatisfaction. "I would see you strong. Not weak. So I'm offering you a rare delicacy, boy. You would be wise to take it."

His palm cupped D's cheek. Alucard felt the dhampir's jaw working, teeth grinding and muscles bulging beneath his fingertips. He passed his thumb across D's lips. How stubbornly they clamped shut! He could detect the hard outline of his fangs, fiercely straining not to open and finally clamp on something hot and warm and with just enough give to be a challenge.

_"You don't need much of this." Alucard pressed his lips to Rhea's, heard her soft desperate intake of breath. She fought a little; arms pushed at his chest. Her eyes fluttered shut as his hands, hot with her blood stoking his veins with heat, whispered down the entire length of her fragile body. It was just such a touch she needed; not the rough mortal eagerness to reproduce but an attention to detail that so many mortal men lacked. Her breath gasped out of her in a high moan while he--_

D pulled away, but the memories continued to unravel as Alucard's taste lingered on his tongue. He fought at them, clawed at them with his own psyche but they came unceasingly.

_It was Integra he desired. She commanded every ion stirring in his immortal flesh. She made his blood turn warm and cold in turns,, made his days sleepless and terrible with visions of her falling apart to age. He saw her before him all her glory, perfect skin marred with scars that were well deserved, only her flawless blonde hair falling about her naked shoulders. She woke from her sleep as soon as his chill presence pervaded the room. They were bound by blood ties older than Integra herself, so of course she could feel him even when he was far away. Her cool eyes took in his shameless voyeurism. Her sleep plumped lips curved into a heartless scythe of a smile. "Come, servant." The sound of her voice purring in the dark. Her heart pounding harder as her voice betrayed her. The whisper of sheets as she slid them from the rest of her body. Blood pulsed just beneath the surface of her skin._

"This is..." He breathed just that much harder. It was not because of the content of the vision but the heartache that was the constant undercurrent. He felt alive, surehearted, and warmer now than he had ever felt before. Someone's iron arms had him around the shoulders like a body manacle and kept him standing straight. "I would have preferred to be spared that memory."

"I didn't mean to." Alucard's voice was husky; was he experiencing the same vestigial memory by sharing his blood? "I had no intention to reveal your... ah, conception."

D's vision spun as someone else's hands ghosted over his skin. Someone else's voice panted in his ear, moaning and whimpering as someone else's pleasure mounted, flowing through him and around him, encapsuling his flesh in a warm and perfect circle of unity. Closing his eyes only filled in the visual emptiness. He opened them again - quickly. He ached. His body hummed with unwanted energy. His heart hammered unrepetantly.

"What is th-this?" He pulled away from Alucard. He staggered a bit, putting distance between them. Better. This was much better. Now he could see the hillls around him, the orphanage, the lake, the dark shapes swimming slowly beneath the icy surface. Cold, not hot. Still, not full of violent, passionate motion. He rubbed his eyes with both hands, his nails gently raking his skin. The pain helped root him firmly in the here-and-now. But he was still flush with desire, the taste of blood and lightning still on his tongue. He looked behind him at his father, who stood calmly, hands clasped behind his back, his coat billowing behind him.

"I'm sorry again." Alucard smiled sadly. "Thus are the kinder nightmares that plague me." His eyes were a smoky crimson, swirling with the images D suffered. Then he turned and walked away, his eyes glistening with a purpose as he strode toward the graveyard.

D stood like a statue, waiting for the last phantom fingertips to quit their travels on his skin. He stared after his father in the meantime, wondering if he dealt with such things in his hours of sleep, or whenever he simply closed his eyes.

-----

Alucard tried to shake off the feeling lingering on the surface of his skin - and just on the surface of the stone egg sitting cold and sharp in his chest. The graveyard was bigger than the Nosferatu remembered. Actually, the entire orphanage grounds had changed very little except maybe an additional building in the courtyard. Whatever use it had been put to had lost its importance centuries ago. But here, the community cemetary had become larger. After years of service to the orphanage, the guardians would either chose to retire or live out their days in the building reserved for those off duty. So most of the gravemarkers had names Alucard did not remember. Others, like the sign outside, were decayed beyond knowing.

Of course - he had remembered every face that day, every man and woman standing in the courtyard when he had come to this orphanage. Why had he come in the first place?

He had wanted to see how his son had survived the long, agonizing walk across his property, navigated the confusing dimensional maze of the forest road, and somehow had the sense of good direction to stumble upon an orphanage for half-breeds. Alucard had allowed the establishment to exist, simply and unbelievingly because he couldn't be bothered to destroy it. He had seen the tremendous strength of will the young Deron had displayed during his tough treatment against disobedience. But he had no idea the boy would suffer the pain of daylight just to find shelter.

It was a blessing in disguise. For he had found her - a human woman with just enough of the same fire, the same fury that could destroy whole worlds - to spark his interest in humanity once again. And that terrible word he could no longer say. Family.

Beneath the earth in this cemetary, the history of the orphanage after Rhea had left to stay with him and birth their first and last child lay as brittle white bones. Brittle white bones that told him nothing about where their only child had been taken. If it was well and truly dead.

He growled, a pervasive chill creeping beneath his feet. Through his calves. A whisper? If someone - or something - was going to show up, it better happen soon or he would soon grow too bored. The frigid air steamed around him as he began to reach, listening for the horde that boiled at his fingertips - his minions, the numberless millions he had devoured over the centuries. If anything malignant existed here, it would fall prey to either one type of attack or another. Physical attacks were his specialty, but his minions hungered for the metaphysical denizens of the netherworld just as much.

Another whisper traced its chilling fingers across his awareness. His breath shuddered; he barely breathed anymore, but for some reason, being among so much old dead, he felt less like a monster and more human.

_Ridiculous_, he thought. _Don't you dare let the sentimentality of such a miserable place get to you._

But the cold feeling was creeping up his legs, sinking deeper than simply flesh. He shivered; his fingers clenched and unclenched and the tattooes beneath his skin on the tops of his hands burned hot and fast.

He had only a split second to respond. To a Nosferatu, that was an infinitismally large amount of time. He focused his body, mind, spirit - and simply moved. The offending sensation did not disappear, but the cold seemed to melt in the sudden gust of wind of the movement. The night air boomed, alive with the power to execute a manuever that was so quick. His coat shuddered. He stared at the spot where he had been standing and realized the snow was a bit shallower there than before, as if someone had recently disturbed it.

The reason why he had felt so cold was the figure standing where he had been. A ghostly figure. Ankle-deep in snow - except her feet simply vanished beneath the snow without any impressions around it. No way she could have fallen into place - there were no trees, no planes, where she could have jumped down.

Her beautiful hair was long and unbound but did not move with the wind. It was as if she stood half-way in this plane of existence, and the ethereal winds of the land of the dead alone swayed her now. She looked exactly the way he had seen her that day when he had personally visited her humble estate.

"Rhea. How is death?" He fought harder than he should have had to keep his voice level and calm. He smiled coldly. He rarely saw ghosts anymore. Most of his phantoms floated only in his mind, while he waited alone in his castle.

"I've been waiting for you," she said, sounding not like a spurned young woman but a lonely widow. "Why didn't you come?"

The truth was wrung out of him without his realizing it. "I was afraid." The backs of his hands continued to pulse and ache. Were his sigils responding, now that some of his own blood taken flowed in his son's veins? Did it awaken the archaic pact that Abraham van Hellsing had written on his skin? On his very soul?

_I don't have a soul._ That was an instinctive, if not long-repeated, response. Maybe his tattooes hummed like this because of the closeness of the dead creature standing in front of him.

"I doubt," she responded coldly, "that you were ever afraid of me."

"I hadn't known worry or frustration in a long time before I met you." His words were somewhat thick. Then he took a bracing gulp of ghost air and grinned menacingly. "So what is it you've come to tell me? That I will suffer for all eternity for what I've done? That you will visit upon my wretched body a thousand agonies, a billion deaths--"

"No. To thank you." Rhea sighed an eternal sigh. She raked her hands over her hair and looked at him. "To explain. While I can still stay. I wish you would listen. I hope you will. And understand."

"Explain what?"

"I wanted to ask you for your forgiveness." Her eyes watered yet no could ever fall. She looked at him so soulfully, it made his heart give a painful and unfamiliar movement toward comfort - but there was none to be had.

So, an undying Nosferatu stared at a ghost of a mortal woman, not a breath of air whispering between them. His eyes devoured every iota of her. Strangely, the more he tried to focus, the less he could really see until he took the long view. The hard, cold lump sitting in his chest gave a sudden, sharp twinge.

"Why?"

"The reason why I stayed all this time." An endless period of time passed, as if a terrible storm brewed just out of sight, beyond a fragile pine wood door, growling and rumbling. Pregnant with rain, the clouds trembled. Then the deluge. "I... I killed our child."

The chill that seemed to threaten to overtake Alucard returned - in a different incarnation. The graveyard: what a perfect place to play out such a scene. His eyes narrowed, and a helpess rage seized him at once. His minions seethed like an acid lake at his command - but what more could he do to the dead ghost before him?

"Perfect!" He laughed loudly. "You had me convinced!"

The ghost looked sad and pained as she watched him rant, her hands clasped in front of her.

"All along! A child, finally, and you had it all figured out from the very beginning! Yes, you demonic, crafty woman! You could never hurt me but in that way, knowing completely and fully how badly I wanted that child!"

"I didn't do it to hurt you, but I realized that it would. That's... why I'm sorry. Please understand."

"Understand?" He stepped forward, a wild look in his eyes, which were now a burning livid red - like two twin suns, fiery in their sockets. "What is there to understand? Murder is senseless, there is no understanding that. The only reasonable response to it is more death - that is the level of reasoning in this world, years later. Death! Death for everyone but me!" He held his hands out to her, talons instead of fingers. "So explain it to me, in detail, why you killed the child I wanted so badly that I gave up everything I held dear."

"Because one of the things you gave up... was someone I cared about. I loved Deron like a son and you threw him aside. It wasn't right. At the time, you had enchanted me with every power you had. I was only human." She closed her eyes, like a blind ghastly Homer. "Then one day, pregnant with your child, I realized it wasn't fair to Deron. Deron, who had done nothing to you, who suffered the most. That this new child should have all of your love and Deron none seemed so utterly, completely unfair. I didn't want a child if it meant that Deron would suffer more and more. I thought of a way that would compromise the baby's health so you wouldn't find out I'd done it." She picked her words as carefully as she could, even if she was still describing infanticide. "I stopped taking the prenatal drugs you had prescribed. I would put them under my tongue, spit them out. I poisoned my body. You thought I was just sick. Now that I realize it, it was still murder... and after the child was born, I admit I went mad... because I didn't want to see it die."

She remembered the awful screaming that came from her. The limp tiny body, lifeless, in her hands. Her soul seemed to rip itself in half with guilt. When Alucard had turned her out of his home, fury and loss written all over him, for a moment she thought he seemed almost human - and that made it even worse.

"Is that all?" Alucard whispered. "You wanted to avenge my other child?" His voice changed subtly. He wanted to grab her and shake her - but his hands were not designed for seizing hold of spirits. "I would have done anything you asked... I would have done anything, if only you hadn't done that."

Rhea pressed her lips together, opening her eyes. She was beginning to fade. "I don't know if you would have. I'm so sorry, Alucard... I'm sorry I hurt you. Please. Do me just one thing before I disappear. Don't take this out on Deron. Please. It wasn't his idea, so don't hurt him. I beg you. I'll never rest in peace if you do."

She was vanishing, starting from her feet, all the way to the top of her head. She held herself as if she might burst apart. But she vanished. A pale glowing light remained, and then it traveled skyward and away, wherever spirits vanished to.

The day was fading too, when he was standing there for a long time, staring at the empty space in the snow. He did not need any of the air he was breathing hard and fast through his teeth. His jaw ached. His eyes burned and a terrible weight seemed to disappear, reshape itself, on his chest.


End file.
